Washington and Mumbai Align as SEC and SEBI Rethink Regulation

Two continents, two regulators, one dilemma. Within 24 hours, last week, the SEC Chairman Paul Atkins in Washington and SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey in Mumbai delivered what sounded like two halves of the same speech. Atkins spoke of returning to “core principles” through a spring-cleaning of outdated rules. Pandey asked whether regulation should act as a shield or a sword. Each was addressing a different market, but both were responding to the same crisis of how to make regulation relevant at a time when algorithms trade faster than institutions can adapt.

Atkins’ argument was part nostalgic, part surgical. After 40 years of regulatory layering, he wants the US Securities and Exchange Commission to clean the attic, basement, and garage of disclosure frameworks like Regulation S-K.

On regulation, Atkins said the goal is not deregulation but renovation. He insists investor protection must coexist with innovation, particularly in digital assets, distributed ledgers, and tokenised securities. His new “innovation exemption” would give space for proof-of-concept projects without forcing them offshore. It is the classic American fix, favouring less form and more function. The SEC, he says, must adapt its processes to the marketplace, not the other way round. Pandey’s framework is more philosophical. Regulation, he says, can protect or punish depending on how it is wielded.

A well-governed institution, Pandey said, treats compliance as a foundation, not a ceiling. Governance, in his view, is the bridge between rules on paper and values in practice. SEBI’s record of reform, which ranges from redefining related-party transactions to mandating women independent directors, shows regulation as an enabler of credibility, not an obstacle to enterprise. Where Atkins wants a rulebook that works faster, Pandey wants a marketplace that thinks deeper.

The convergence between them is striking. Both believe investor protection and innovation are not opposing goals but twin engines of confidence. Both emphasise proportional regulation. Atkins by trimming redundancies, Pandey by promising to simplify and contextualise old provisions.

Both regulators acknowledged that credibility, not capital, is what keeps markets liquid. The SEC’s call to modernise disclosure and SEBI’s push for meaningful transparency reveal a shared understanding that when investors can trust the numbers, they can price the risk. Their divergence begins where economics meets ethics.

Atkins approaches markets as a machine that must be recalibrated; Pandey treats them as an organism that must mature. Atkins talks of making IPOs “cool again” by reducing litigation risk and governance complexity. Pandey talks of making governance “authentic” by linking ESG outcomes to measurable conduct. One speaks the language of incentives, the other of introspection. The SEC chair wants more companies to list; the SEBI chair wants them to last.

Atkins’s fascination with innovation shows the SEC’s capitalist realism. His digital-asset task force explores “functional regulation,” where if it looks like a security, treat it like one, but don’t strangle it with forms written in 1940. The ambition is to bring experimentation onshore and prevent another FTX-like collapse by giving start-ups a safe corridor. Pandey, meanwhile, is turning governance from checklist to conscience. He wants boards to track culture, oversee algorithms, and treat disclosure as a form of dialogue. His suggestion of ethics committees and machine-readable reporting shows a regulator using technology not to police behaviour but to pre-empt misconduct.

What unites the SEC and SEBI, despite tone and tempo, is a belief that confidence is capital. Atkins notes that private credit has become vital to US growth and wants retail investors to access it safely. Pandey argues that trust, once broken, cannot be rebuilt by enforcement alone. Both see regulation as a public good that compounds only when credibility compounds with it.

When Atkins says investors are “number one,” and Pandey insists markets rely on “quiet assurance that every participant will play by the rules,” they are articulating that trust is not soft capital; it is systemic capital.

The contrast, however, reveals the political economies they inhabit. America’s The US regulator must deflate an over-regulated market; India’s must discipline an exuberant one still learning institutional memory. Atkins is managing fatigue after decades of disclosure; Pandey is managing faith after years of reform. Each represents a different stage of financial maturity, yet both are navigating the same question of how to encourage risk-taking without encouraging recklessness.

For investors, the message is sobering but reassuring. Regulatory philosophies may diverge, but the trajectory converges toward smarter, principle-based oversight. The SEC’s recalibration and SEBI’s introspection suggest a slow but sure alignment in global thinking that rules must not just guard capital; they must earn confidence. When markets trust the umpire, they play harder but fairer.

If SEC and SEBI are indeed learning from each other, the next decade could see not just regulatory convergence, but also a convergence of temperament. Atkins may clean the attic, Pandey may polish the mirror, but both are pursuing the same goal of shaping a market where integrity is not enforced but internalised.