NEW DELHI: Foreign institutional investment by means of Participatory Notes (PNs) reached its highest level in a seven-year timeframe at 2.72 lakh crore during March this year.

PNs are instruments issued by registered foreign institutional investors (FII) to overseas investors who want to invest in the Indian stock markets without registering themselves with the market regulator SEBI.

As per the data released by the market regulator, the total value of PN investments inclusive of equity, debt and derivates in the Indian market surged to 2,72,078 crore at the end of March this year from 2,71,752 crore in the previous month.

The share of PNs in FII investment has fallen over the years after SEBI tightened its noose over fund's disclosure norms and related regulations.

Since 2009, PNs have been accounting for 15-20 percent of the total FII investments in the country. The share of PNs, however, was in the range of 25-40 percent in 2008 the year following the stock market's bull run when PN was over 50 percent of the total FII.

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