SEBI’s Samajh Se Investing Simple campaign can help bridge the gap between access to financial markets and the ability to navigate them with confidence.
Most investment decisions begin with a nudge: a friend’s tip, a video, a promised return. What gets less attention is whether the investor understands what they are buying. That is the gap SEBI’s Project Jagrook, and its Samajh Se Investing Simple campaign, aims to close.
Launched on 5 October at Panjab University, Chandigarh, during World Investor Week, the campaign runs through March 2027. It is delivered with the exchanges, depositories, AMFI and NISM. The aim is not to push more people into markets, but to help them decide with greater clarity and comprehension.
Learning, in small steps
For a first-time investor, the vocabulary alone can be a barrier. SEBI’s campaign site breaks the journey into modules: understand before you invest, choose regulated products, start early and stay invested, and beware of fraud.
The SEBI Investor Awareness Test (SIAT), hosted by NISM, gauges a user’s knowledge and suggests a learning path. Experienced investors can use the same material to test their assumptions.
The campaign film is built to be remembered. Set to the rhythm of a multiplication-table chant, it covers starting small, starting early, trusting facts over tips, and understanding SIPs, REITs, InvITs, commodities and bonds before choosing among them.
Catching investors before they start
The campaign’s most distinctive bet is the MUST initiative (Mentoring of University/College Students by Trainers). Faculty and senior students are trained and certified as partner trainers, and then teach financial literacy and fraud prevention on campus.
SEBI is working with the Association of Indian Universities to extend this across institutions. For young people about to earn their first salary, this means investing habits are shaped by structured learning rather than social feeds. A student leaflet comparing investing to a trek makes the point that both involve ups and downs and need preparation.
Meeting investors where they are
Reach matters as much as content. The campaign runs in English, Hindi and 11 regional languages, across television, social media, mobile apps and digital advertising.
SEBI has also launched an official WhatsApp channel with a verified blue tick, a useful signal in a medium where impersonation is common. Access is built around the helpline numbers (1800 266 7575 and 1800 22 7575) and SEBI’s Saarthi app, so help is a call or tap away.
Tools for the moment of decision
Awareness is only useful if it works at the point of payment. SEBI Check lets investors verify UPI handles before sending money, and the SCORES portal gives a route for complaints. An investor who pauses to verify a payment request is protected in a way no warning can match.
What success should look like
Reach figures will be easy to publish. The harder and more meaningful test is behavioural: can a new investor explain what they own, can an existing one spot a misleading claim, and do people know where to verify and where to complain.
Project Jagrook has to take on the mantle of making this fundamental shift in understanding to meet its objective of investor empowerment.
NOTE TO READERS
Disclaimer: This is an advertorial published as part of a marketing initiative. CNBC-TV18 and its affiliates had no editorial input or involvement in its preparation. No CNBC-TV18 journalist was involved in writing, researching or editing this article.