In a bid to safeguard the interest of investors, capital market regulator Sebi on Friday announced a new set of rules to govern issuance and listing of securities.

Sebi announced that its board gave approval to the Issue & Listing of non-convertible redeemable preference shares Regulations, 2013 to provide an all-inclusive regulatory framework for such issuances.

As per the new guidelines, the listing of privately placed non-convertible redeemable preference shares will require a minimum application size of Rs 10 lakh per investor.

The public issuance of such shares will also require a minimum tenure of three years for the instruments and a minimum AA- rating.

Apart from safeguarding investors' interest, the new rules will make it easier for banks and infrastructure firms to garner funds through issuance and listing of such shares.

The market regulator said that the new regulations would be applicable to banks' issuances of non-equity instruments like Innovative Perpetual Debt Instruments and Perpetual Non-Cumulative Preference Shares.

A preference share is an equity security that has properties of equity as well as a debt instrument. It normally provides no voting rights, but may offer a dividend.