Your SDD Compliance
Deserves Better Than
A Spreadsheet.

A Structured Digital Database (SDD) is a mandatory record required under SEBI's Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT) Regulations, 2015 (amended 2018). Listed companies must maintain a digital database of all persons with whom Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) is shared — including their names, PAN, nature of information shared, and the purpose. The SDD must be maintained for a minimum of 8 years and must be available for SEBI inspection at any time.

While SEBI does not explicitly prohibit Excel, the core problem is auditability and data integrity. Excel files have no immutable audit trail, can be altered without detection, and lack access controls — all of which are critical for SEBI inspections. A spreadsheet cannot prove that a record was created on a specific date by a specific person and never altered. This lack of verifiability creates significant regulatory risk. SDD software like InsiderQ provides the timestamped, immutable, access-controlled records that SEBI expects.

UPSI (Unpublished Price Sensitive Information) is any information not yet public that, if known, could materially affect the price of a company's securities. This includes financial results, mergers & acquisitions, regulatory actions, or key management changes. SEBI requires companies to track who receives UPSI, when, and for what purpose — because unauthorized sharing or trading based on UPSI constitutes insider trading, a serious regulatory violation with criminal and financial penalties.

Under SEBI's PIT Regulations, companies and responsible persons can face penalties including monetary fines up to ₹25 crore, disgorgement of profits, suspension of trading activity, and criminal proceedings in severe cases. Show cause notices, public enforcement orders, and reputational damage are also common consequences. SEBI has been significantly increasing enforcement activity, with a particular focus on insider trading compliance and SDD maintenance quality in recent years.

InsiderQ reduces compliance risk through four core mechanisms: (1) Centralizing all SDD records in a single, access-controlled platform eliminating version confusion; (2) Automating UPSI tracking with tamper-proof timestamps; (3) Automating trading window notifications so no stakeholder is uninformed; and (4) Generating audit-ready reports on demand so you're never unprepared for a SEBI inspection. Combined, these eliminate the manual process failures that are the most common source of compliance violations.

SEBI's Prohibition of Insider Trading Regulations, 2015 (as amended in 2018) form the primary framework governing insider trading compliance for listed companies in India. Key requirements include: maintaining a Structured Digital Database of UPSI sharing, implementing trading restriction policies, managing trading windows around price-sensitive events, obtaining pre-clearance for insider trades, and maintaining adequate records for at least 8 years. The 2018 amendments significantly strengthened enforcement, introducing the mandatory SDD requirement and expanding the definition of insiders.

Most companies are fully operational within 5–7 working days of starting implementation. InsiderQ offers guided onboarding with data migration support, meaning your existing insider records and UPSI data can be imported directly. Our compliance team works with your CS or legal team to ensure the platform is configured correctly for your specific company structure before you go live. There's no complex IT infrastructure required — InsiderQ is cloud-based and accessible immediately.

Yes. InsiderQ's multi-entity management module allows compliance teams to manage SDD records across multiple listed entities, subsidiaries, and group companies from a single platform. Each entity maintains its own independent SDD with separate access controls, while corporate compliance teams get a consolidated view across the entire group. Role-based permissions ensure that entity-level data remains appropriately segregated.

InsiderQ is built with enterprise-grade security including: AES-256 encryption for all data at rest; TLS 1.3 for all data in transit; role-based access controls preventing unauthorized viewing of sensitive records; complete session and access logging; regular security audits; and infrastructure designed for financial-grade compliance requirements. We treat your insider and UPSI data with the same security standards applied to financial systems, because the regulatory consequences of a breach are severe.

No — InsiderQ is designed to empower your compliance team, not replace them. It eliminates the tedious, error-prone manual work so your Company Secretary, Compliance Officer, and legal team can focus on judgment-intensive activities — policy development, stakeholder management, and strategic compliance governance. Think of it as removing the administration burden so your experts can focus on what only humans can do.

General compliance software is designed for broad governance frameworks. SDD software like InsiderQ is purpose-built for SEBI's specific PIT Regulation requirements — it understands the difference between connected persons, insiders, and KMPs; it knows what information belongs in an SDD; and it generates reports in the format SEBI expects. Using general compliance software for SDD management is like using a word processor to manage a financial database — technically possible, but not built for the job, and dangerous if you're inspected.

InsiderQ provides dedicated audit support including: on-demand generation of all required SDD reports and UPSI logs in formats suitable for SEBI submission; access to historical records going back to implementation; a complete audit trail of all compliance activities; and priority access to our compliance team during audit periods. Multiple clients have successfully navigated SEBI inspections using InsiderQ reports as their primary compliance evidence.