Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday rang the symbolic opening bell to mark the merger of two markets watchdogs -- the Forward Markets Commission for commodity futures with the Securities and Exchange Board of India -- at a function here.

While the commodities futures regulator was set up in 1953, the stock and debt markets regulator was set up in 1988 as a non-statutory body and later became an autonomous and fully-independent institution in 1992.