Staff Correspondent

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an asset management licence Tuesday to Venture Investment Partners Bangladesh (VIPB).

The market regulator also made it mandatory for bankers to IPO issuers to deposit an applicant's refund warrant to their bank account, SEC executive director Farhad Ahmed told reporters in his office.

The decisions came at an SEC board meeting Tuesday. VIPB is a venture capital investment company incorporated in Bangladesh as a public limited company.

It is a joint venture between NRB investors based in the US and Bangladeshi institutional sponsors. The total paid-up capital of the company is Tk 12.5 crore with Tk 7.5 crore from local sponsors such as The City Bank, NCC Bank, Southeast Bank and Trends Consultants, and the remaining Tk 5 crore from NRBs, said Farhad.

Investment managers are manage securities such as shares and bonds to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of the investors. Investors may be insurance companies, pension funds, corporations or private investors—both directly via investment contracts and more commonly via collective investment schemes such as mutual funds. "The decision to issue the licence came to boost the supply of mutual funds in the capital market," Farhad said.

"It will definitely enhance the market as mutual funds deal with diversified portfolios," the SEC official said. On the decision regarding banks that collect IPO subscriptions on behalf of the issuer, Farhad said: "It has been the SEC's long-time priority to ease hassles faced by investors."

"The decision is an outcome of that." In the past, a refund warrant had to be collected from an announced date and venue by the banker to issuer. The bank will now deposit refund warrants on behalf of the applicants if they are its clients.

The new initiative will reduce the time and hassle for investors and for the banks as well, the SEC official said. "But the most important thing is it will ensure transparency," he added.