A Social Stock Exchange

The necessity of a social stock exchange (SSE) has long been felt as we have roughly 2 million social enterprises, and the thrust for financial mainstreaming was expressed in the Union Budget 2019–20. The capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), was entrusted to constitute a working group in September 2019 that was responsible for suggesting the possible structures and financing mechanisms within the ambit of securities markets in order to facilitate capital access by social enterprises and voluntary organisations as well as sketching an associated regulatory framework, inter alia, covering the issues relating to eligibility norms for participation, disclosures, listing, trading, oversight, etc.

Following several consultations with voluntary organisations, social enterprises, and philanthropic bodies, the working group perhaps understood the modalities for blending of conventional capital and social capital, and the significance of “value plurality” and “economic and moral performativity” in the enterprise performance. In other words, the rationale for an independent SSE hinges on the mainstreaming of philanthropic or development, strategic or private risk capital to those social enterprises that have evinced interest and demonstrated their sustainable business performance.