Ever since India witnessed growth of the financial creator economy - from casually sharing stock tips on YouTube to leading full-fledged investment communities on Instagram and Telegram, ‘finfluencers’ have gone from niche to mainstream in just over a decade. But as the money, followers, and risks have grown, so has the scrutiny from India’s financial regulators, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
On June 26, 2025, Meta put self-styled financial influencers on notice by mandating SEBI registration verification for all securities and investment ads targeting users in India. The move aims to curb the rise of unregulated market advisors on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Finfluencers in India haven’t come under the regulatory spotlight just this year. It started in 2010, when SEBI made it mandatory for all investment-related advertisements to include clear disclaimers about potential risks. This was especially important for products like mutual funds and stock market investments, where the chances of misleading retail investors were high.
By 2017, SEBI allowed celebrities to appear in mutual fund advertisements, but only to promote industry-wide campaigns and not specific schemes or brands. As social media usage surged across India, a new category of influencers emerged — those offering financial tips, advice, and product reviews.
These finfluencers quickly gained large followings, especially among young and first-time investors in smaller towns and cities. Many of them operated outside the formal regulatory ecosystem, which raised concerns about accountability and the potential for misleading promotions.
In 2021, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) stepped in with its own guidelines for influencer marketing. For the first time, influencers across categories, including finance, were required to clearly label any paid, sponsored, or barter-based content.
Then, in 2024, SEBI formally defined what constitutes a “finfluencer” and released a draft regulatory framework. This included rules prohibiting SEBI-registered intermediaries like brokers and mutual funds from working with unregistered finfluencers. It also required those giving technical or investment-specific advice to register, and made it mandatory to disclose any financial ties with brands or platforms in their content.
Manisha Kapoor, CEO and Secretary General, ASCI, welcomes Meta’s decision and considers it a positive step towards ensuring consumer safety. She says that with the evolution of finfluencer landscape, regulations will evolve too.
“The ASCI Code already has several safeguards for consumers and it will evolve as the need arises. Also, the ASCI Code is harmonious with this development as it requires financial influencers to be suitably registered with appropriate regulators and to be qualified to offer the advice they post. As consumers change the way they make purchase decisions, it’s important to regulate the marketing messages they are exposed to. This is especially crucial in a space like finance, where poorly-made decisions can have long-term and wide-ranging impact on the consumer and their family,” she states.
While these changes aim to protect retail investors from misinformation, they also raise critical questions about creator accountability, platform responsibility, and brand compliance.
So what will it now take to be a compliant finfluencer in India? Viraj Sheth, CEO and Co-founder, Monk Entertainment, shares that post the announcement, the agency has tightened how it vets scripts. It will make sure there are proper disclosures, no misleading claims, and only work with creators who understand what they’re putting out.
“Some of the essentials we will keep are clear disclosures, SEBI registration if advice is involved, clean, non-sensational copy, and ideally, a legal check from the brand’s side,” he adds.
Echoing the same, Ambika Sharma, Founder and Chief Strategist, Pulp Strategy, says that finance-related campaigns are no longer just about creator reach or content quality, but about credibility, legal clarity, and proactive risk mitigation.
“Every campaign now begins with compliance-first thinking. That means validating SEBI registration, disclosing affiliations upfront, and pre-clearing content formats that could be interpreted as advisory. Even creator briefing docs look different now. The guardrails are tighter, but honestly, they should’ve been tighter a long time ago."
With the introduction of the policy, some of the BFSI campaigns have also hit pause for a short-term and expected to mature the approach the Meta way. Experts are optimistic that this would surely clean up the space as brands will only work with credible creators.
They also believe that from a revenue standpoint, the influencer pie hasn’t shrunk, it’s just moving toward creators who understand compliance and can deliver authenticity within a regulated framework.
Meta is not pushing any influencers/finfluencers but also helping them to accommodate with the new regulation. Hitarth Dadia, CEO and Partner of NOFILTR.GROUP, states that there is sufficient support from Meta just like YouTube where it is a performance stage for both creators and brands.
However, he remarks that Meta’s core business isn’t financial advisory—it provides tools and platform guidance. For finance-specific content, bodies like SEBI or ASCI offer more tailored directions. “Meta does collaborate well, but we must recognize its limitations in domain-specific guidance. Joint efforts between platforms and regulatory boards are key,” he says.
Brands are significantly reassessing how they work with influencers and agencies. Due diligence is now mandatory and far more rigorous — including SEBI registration checks (where applicable).
“The due diligence checklist is now non-negotiable,” said Sharma. Some brands, she added, are even going so far as to establish internal compliance councils to vet influencer content with the same level of scrutiny traditionally applied to ad campaigns. “Everyone wants alignment; no one wants liability,” she emphasises.
For influencer management firms, the new landscape is being viewed as a long-overdue shift toward structure and accountability. Dadia believes the rules act as a hygiene check, which was much needed since social media marketing has long been unregulated.
He adds that the focus is now shifting from transactional endorsements to more deliberate storytelling. “Instead of creators simply following a brief for money, both creators and brands must now be clearer in their messaging and intent. This will improve the quality of campaigns overall.”
Now, brands might think of choosing both finfluencers and registered financial advisors for their campaigns, especially advisors for credibility and creators for reach. The key difference lies in the type of creator. Instead of thinking in binary terms—influencer vs. expert— brands would want to consider whether the creator has genuine expertise and transparency.
