Anybody in India who advises you on specific securities for a fee is required to be registered, and the registration is a matter of public record. Which means the check most people never perform takes about two minutes.
We should declare our own position before explaining anybody else's, because this article would be worthless otherwise.
Our own status, stated first
TheFinBaba is not a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser and does not claim to be. We sell education. We do not recommend specific securities, we do not run a tips group or a signal service, we do not manage anybody's money, and we never hold client funds.
Atul Shrivastava is a registered Authorised Person with the exchange, through Zerodha (NSE AP Reg: AP2516003481). That is a distribution registration — it permits introducing clients to a broker and earns a share of the broker's revenue. It is emphatically not an advisory registration and it does not authorise anybody to tell you what to buy.
The account-opening links on this site are under that registration and they earn us money, which is why the disclosure appears on every page carrying one rather than in a corner of the terms.
Read the rest of this article with that in mind. We have a commercial interest in you opening a broker account, and no interest in which securities you then choose, because we do not benefit from that decision in any way.
The categories, and what each one is allowed to do
Different registrations permit different activities, and the differences are the whole point — a number by itself proves nothing if it is the wrong kind of number.
Stock broker. Executes your transactions and holds your trading account. Registration numbers in this category begin with INZ. A broker executing your orders is not thereby entitled to advise you on which orders to place.
Investment Adviser. Permitted to give personalised advice on securities for a fee, after assessing your circumstances. Numbers begin with INA. The regulations draw a hard line between advice and distribution, so an adviser charging you a fee should not also be earning a commission on what they recommend to you.
Research Analyst. Permitted to publish research and general recommendations, not personalised advice for your situation. Numbers begin with INH.
Mutual fund distributor. Registered with AMFI rather than directly as an adviser, and identified by an ARN. Permitted to distribute funds and earn commission; not permitted to hold themselves out as an adviser.
Authorised Person. Registered with an exchange through a broker, for distribution. Our own category, as above.
The practical version: if somebody is telling you what to buy for your specific situation, the category you want to see is an Investment Adviser registration. Anything else means they are permitted to do something adjacent to what they are actually doing.
How to actually check
Four steps, none of which require any expertise.
Ask for the number and the exact registered name. Both, because the name on the register frequently differs from the brand you are being sold. A person operating under a company's registration should say so.
Look it up on the regulator's own site. SEBI publishes searchable registers of intermediaries by category, and the exchanges publish their member and authorised person lists. Go to those directly rather than following a link somebody sends you, which is a general rule worth applying beyond this.
Confirm the category matches the activity. This is the step people skip. A valid registration in the wrong category is the most common form of misdirection, because a genuine number can be produced and verified while the activity it permits is not the activity being performed.
Check whether it is current. Registrations lapse and are sometimes suspended, and the register reflects present status rather than history.
If a complaint later becomes necessary, SEBI operates a formal complaints platform for registered intermediaries. That mechanism exists precisely because the entity is registered, and it is one of the concrete things you give up by dealing with somebody who is not.
The signals that should stop a conversation
Not proof of anything on their own, and each one is worth pausing on.
No assured or guaranteed return is ever legitimate. No registered adviser is permitted to promise one, and no honest unregistered person would, because the underlying assets do not produce a fixed outcome. This single item disqualifies more offers than everything else combined.
Profit sharing on a personal arrangement. Somebody proposing to trade your account for a share of the gains is describing an activity that is regulated, and doing it informally means it is not.
Pressure to decide today. Legitimate arrangements survive a night's thought. Nothing about a genuine opportunity requires you to transfer money before you have checked a register.
Money moving anywhere other than your own broker account. Funds transferred to an individual, or to a company for “managed” trading, have left the structure that protects you. A regulated arrangement leaves your holdings in your own name at a depository.
A screenshot as evidence. Profit and loss screenshots are trivially edited and impossible to verify, and they are the standard currency of unregistered advice. Verified performance for a registered entity is a documented thing; an image is not.
Reluctance to be checked. Anyone genuinely registered treats a verification request as routine, because it is. Irritation at the question is itself an answer.
Open it yourself, directly
Nobody else needs access to it, and nobody should ask. Free to open
Registration categories, number formats and the regulator's own processes are revised from time to time — verify against SEBI's and the exchanges' current published material rather than relying on this description. This is educational material and not advice. We run no tips group and no signal service, we manage nobody's money, and no return is promised on anything.
Disclosure: the account-opening link on this page is under Atul Shrivastava's Zerodha Authorised Person registration (NSE AP Reg: AP2516003481; Zerodha Broking Ltd. SEBI Reg: INZ000031633) and earns a revenue share. TheFinBaba is not a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser — this content is educational, not investment advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I check if someone is SEBI registered?
Ask for the registration number and the exact registered name, then look both up on SEBI's own searchable registers or the relevant exchange's member and authorised person lists. Go to those sites directly rather than through a link the person provides.
What is the difference between an Investment Adviser and a Research Analyst?
An Investment Adviser may give personalised advice for your specific circumstances, for a fee. A Research Analyst may publish research and general recommendations, but not advice tailored to you. If somebody is advising you personally, the adviser category is the one that should apply.
Is an Authorised Person allowed to advise me?
No. An Authorised Person is registered with an exchange through a broker for distribution — introducing clients and earning a share of brokerage. It permits nothing advisory. This is our own category, which is why nothing on this site recommends specific securities.
Someone showed me a registration certificate. Is that enough?
No. A certificate is an image. Take the number and the registered name from it and verify them on the regulator's own register, and then confirm the category actually permits the activity being performed. A valid number in the wrong category is the most common form of misdirection.
What if somebody guarantees returns?
Stop there. No registered adviser is permitted to promise an assured return, and the underlying assets cannot produce one reliably. Whatever else is true about the arrangement, that single claim is sufficient reason to walk away without further investigation.
Related Reading
- Why this matters particularly in Bengal
- Surveillance measures on a share
- Choosing a broker, with our bias declared
- What the rules say about running your own algorithm
- Judging a course before paying for it
- Education, which needs no advisory licence
Disclaimer: TheFinBaba provides educational content only - this is not investment advice. Trading involves risk of loss.
