SEBI has enhanced obligations and responsibilities for qualified stockbrokers (‘QSBs’) by way of Notification dated January 17, 2023. As per the Notification, QSBs will be designated by SEBI taking into account their size, impact on investors, governance and services standards basis various parameters including total number of active clients, available total assets of client with the stockbroker, trading volumes of the stockbroker, the end of day margin obligations of all clients of a stockbroker, compliance score and proprietary trading volumes of the stock broker, amongst others. Further, the QSBs will be required to meet enhanced obligations and discharge responsibilities to ensure appropriate governance structure and processes, appropriate risk management policies and processes, scalable infrastructure and appropriate technical capacities, framework for orderly winding down, robust cyber security frameworks and processes and investor services including online complaint redressal mechanisms. Further to the Notification, SEBI, by way of Circular dated February 6, 2023, has prescribed the parameters and manner for designation of a stockbroker as a QSB as well as the framework pertaining to the obligations and responsibilities of QSBs.