CIRCULAR
SEBI/HO/MRD-TPD-1/CIR/P/2023/7 January 09, 2023
To,
All Stock Exchanges
All Clearing Corporations
All Depositories,
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Sub.: Standard Operating Procedure for handling of Stock Exchange Outage and
extension of trading hours thereof
1. Trading hours of stock exchanges are pre-defined and known to all market participants
including the other Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) to enable them to carry out
activities related to continuous trading in securities.
2. If due to any technical reason or otherwise, continuous trading on stock exchanges is
disrupted, it is of paramount importance that not only all market participants including
other MIIs, are promptly informed about the outage but also the trading hours are
extended, if required, so as to provide opportunity for smooth closure of intraday
positions.
3. With a view to ensure that any outage at stock exchange(s) is handled in a harmonized
and consistent manner, the matter was discussed with the MIIs and Standard
Operating Procedure with regard to handling of such stock exchange outage in Cash
Market and Equity Derivatives segment is detailed below.
Definition of Stock Exchange Outage
4. Stock Exchange Outage shall mean stoppage of continuous trading, either suo moto
by exchange or by virtue of reasons beyond control of stock exchange. Further,
stoppage of continuous trading shall not include trading halt on account of index based
market-wide circuit breaker.
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Reporting Requirements for outage
5. The stock exchange that suffered the outage (referred to as affected stock exchange)
shall intimate about the outage to various stakeholders as mentioned below:
Sl. Communication to Reporting
No.
1. Market Participants /  Immediate but not later than 15 minutes from occurrence of
Trading Members / Other outage. Through broadcast message and by publishing on
MIIs its website
2. SEBI  Immediate after occurrence of outage. Through an email to
dedicated email id : techglitch@sebi.gov.in
6. Further, the affected stock exchange shall update about the ongoing outage in the
time intervals of 45 minutes from the initial intimation, as mentioned at Para 5 above,
until normalcy to operations is restored. Extension of trading hours, if applicable (as
mentioned subsequently from para 10 to 16 of the circular), shall be mentioned in the
intimation by the affected stock exchange.
Trading on unaffected segment(s) / exchanges and Resumption of trading on
affected stock exchange
7. In the event of disruption of trading in one or more market segments of affected stock
exchange, qualifying as outage, trading in other unaffected segments of the affected
exchange shall continue and all other unaffected exchanges shall continue to trade in
all of their market segments.
8. Affected stock exchange would restore operations to normalcy at the earliest including
from the Disaster Recovery Site and carry out various activities, in terms of SEBI
Circular dated March 22, 2021 on Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster
Recovery (DR) and SEBI circular dated July 05, 2021 on Standard Operating
Procedure for handling of technical glitches by Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs)
and payment of “Financial Disincentives” thereof, as applicable.
9. A pre-opening session similar to normal pre-opening session would be conducted for
effective price discovery, before resumption of trading. Further, there shall be an
advance intimation of at least 15 minutes to various market participants with regard to
resumption of trading or start of pre-opening session, as applicable.
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Extension of trading hours in case of outage
10. If the trading on the affected stock exchange resumes to normalcy at least one hour
(excluding 15 minutes of pre-opening session, if applicable) before the normal
scheduled market closure, trading hours on that day for all stock exchanges would
remain unchanged.
11. If the trading on the affected stock exchange does not resume to normalcy even one
hour (excluding 15 minutes of pre-opening session, if applicable) before the scheduled
market closure, trading hours for all stock exchanges would automatically get
extended for additional one and half hours for that day and the same would be
intimated by the affected stock exchange to market participants, other MIIs and SEBI
latest by one hour fifteen minutes before the normal scheduled market closure.
Subsequent to the communication from the affected stock exchange, the unaffected
stock exchanges would also suitably issue a notice with regard to extension of trading
hours on their stock exchanges.
12. If the trading on the affected stock exchange does not resume to normalcy even 45
minutes (excluding 15 minutes of pre-opening session, if applicable) post normal
scheduled market closure, in the case of extension of trading hours, no further trading
would be allowed on the affected stock exchange for that day and other stock
exchanges would continue to operate till the extended time provided at para 11 above
to enable smooth closure/settlement of intraday positions. The affected exchange
would have to suitably intimate the same to market participants, other MIIs and SEBI
latest by 45 minutes post normal scheduled market closure.
13. If the occurrence of outage as mentioned in para 4 above, happens during the last
trading hour of normal operation and latest before 15 minutes of normal scheduled
market closure, trading hours for all stock exchanges would automatically get
extended by one and half hours for that day and the same would be intimated by the
affected stock exchange to market participants, other MIIs and SEBI immediately but
not later than 10 minutes from the occurrence of outage. Subsequent to the
communication from the affected stock exchange, the unaffected stock exchanges
would also suitably issue a notice with regard to extension of trading hours on their
stock exchanges.
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14. Exchanges to put in place a common close out policy, within 30 days of this circular,
to ensure uniform methodology of settlement of open positions, in case continuous
trading didn’t happen in Cash Market or Equity Derivative Segment of the exchange
during last half an hour of trading for the day due to outage.
15. Extension of trading hours, if any, for Cash Market would result in equivalent extension
of trading hours in Equity Derivative Segment and vice versa, provided trading hours
at the start of the day are aligned for both Cash Market and Equity Derivative Segment.
Further, Extension of trading hours in the Cash Market would also result in equivalent
extension to other secondary market mechanisms conducted during trading hours
such as Offer For Sale, Buy back etc.
16. For illustration, a few scenarios pertaining to extension of trading hours are tabulated
herewith with the assumptions that trading hours for two exchanges A and B in Cash
Market and Equity Derivative Segment, at start of the day, are from 09:15 to 15:30
(i.e. excluding pre-opening and post-closing session) and all segments of exchange
B are operating unaffected.
S Occurrence of
No outage Event Extension of trading hours
In Equity
Derivative Normalcy in the said
Segment of segment restored No extension of trading hours for exchange A
1 exchange A latest by 14:30 and B
In Cash Market Start of Pre-opening No extension of trading hours for exchange A
2 of exchange A latest by 14:15 and B
Trading hours in Cash Market and Equity
Derivative Segment
of exchange A and B extended till 17:00 and
announcement in this regard to be made latest
by 14:15 by the affected stock exchange. Note
Failure to start Pre- that such announcement is to be made on the
opening by 14:15 on basis of assessment by stock exchange on the
exchange A likely resumption of normalcy
No trading permitted in Cash Market on
Any time during exchange A for the day.
the trading hours Failure to start Pre- Equity Derivative Segment on exchange A and
in Cash Market opening by 16:00 on Cash Market and Equity Derivative Segment
3 on exchange A exchange A on exchange B would continue to trade till
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17:00. The affected stock exchange to
announce latest by 16:15
Trading hours in Cash Market and Equity
Derivative Segment
At 15:05 on
of exchange A and B extended till 17:00 and
4 exchange A in
announcement to be made by affected stock
Cash Market
exchange within 10 minutes of occurrence of
outage i.e. by 15:15
At 15:16 on
5 exchange A in No extension of trading hours for exchange A
Cash Market and B
Updation of BCP document of MII
17. MIIs shall update their BCP document subsequent to the instant circular and submit
the same to SEBI subsequent to approval of their Governing Boards within 2 months
of the date of this circular.
18. This circular is being issued in exercise of powers conferred under Section 11 (1) of
the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 to protect the interests
of investors in securities and to promote the development of, and to regulate
the securities market.
19. This circular is available on SEBI website at www.sebi.gov.in under the categories
“Legal Framework” and “Circulars”.
20. This circular shall come into effect immediately and is without prejudice to the SEBI
circulars dated March 22, 2021 and July 05, 2021 to the MIIs on ‘Guidelines for
Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) of Market Infrastructure
Institutions (MIIs)’ and ‘Standard Operating Procedure for handling of technical
glitches by Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) and payment of “Financial
Disincentives” thereof’ respectively.
Yours faithfully,
Ansuman Dev Pradhan
Deputy General Manager
Technology, Process Re-engineering, Data Analytics
Market Regulation Department
+91-22-26449622 Email: ansumanp@sebi.gov.in
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