IOSCO Annual Conference on key challenges facing securities regulators

The 43rd Annual Conference of the Members of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) took place in Budapest, Hungary on 10th of May at the Magyar Nemzeti Bank and was focused on discussing and addressing issues facing securities market regulators these days.

The IOSCO Board, IOSCO´s Growth and Emerging Markets (GEM) Committee, the four Regional Committees and the Affiliate Members Consultative Committee (AMCC) attended the meetings and discussed their initiatives of protecting investors, efficiency and transparency of the markets and ensuring fair.

The four key issues the public sessions were focused on are the sale of unsuitable products to retail investors, the challenges of Fintech and digitalization, the shift from active to passively managed collective investment schemes, and SME access to funding through capital markets.

Discussions of the Board

The Board has agreed on the enforcement practices to be effective solution in mitigating the risks of the binary options and other OTC leveraged products to retail investors. As to the asset management area, the Board discussed exchange traded funds and reviewed the work of the IOSCO on measuring leverage in investment funds.

The members also discussed the consequences of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the European data privacy regime that will come into force from 25th of May 2018. The organization will continue to interact with EU to address any problems caused by implementation of the GDPR.

Also the Board agreed on launching a Fintech Network to support the sharing of information, knowledge and experiences among IOSCO members.

There are three new signatories to the IOSCO Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (IOSCO MMoU): Armenia, Central Bank of Armenia; Dominican Republic, Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores and Zambia, Securities and Exchanges Commission.