Hyderabad, Aug 23 - India has a huge potential to involve retail investors in the stock markets but they are not coming out to invest because they have learnt a lesson from the Satyam Computer fraud, feels Madhav Mehra, president of the London-based World Council for Corporate Governance.

'The stock market participation of Indians is barely two percent while in the US it is 45 percent,' Mehra told IANS during a visit here.

'Indians have no problem with money. They are just holding it somewhere. They are not coming because they have learnt from Satyam,' he added.

Describing the Satyam episode as an eye-opener, Mehra said that after Jan 7, when Satyam's founder and disgraced chairman B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to a Rs.78-billion ($1.43 billion) accounting fraud, it was the small investor who had lost the most.

Mehra said Indian companies needed to set high standards in corporate governance.

'India can't take a backseat in corporate governance because the future belongs to India. Indian companies are not going for full disclosures. There is some requirement of the transactions of mergers, restructuring and acquisitions. People must know what a company is doing,' he said.

'There are several lessons to be learnt from Satyam. It opened our eyes. It showed how a great company can also be brought down if somebody decides he does not want to be ethical for some reason.