East African Securities Regulators have agreed to adopt a regional framework to ensure that only operators with the highest standards operate regionally. The framework has provisions focusing on the ability of a person to carry on a regulated activity competently, honestly and fairly.
Additionally it has outlined provisions for the evaluation of reputation, character, financial integrity and reliability of market operators.
With the increasingly adoption of FinTech in the financial market industries, the regulators have welcomed the move to employ regulatory sandboxes which will provide test environments where innovative products, services, business models can operate subject to clear conditions on scale and reach, without incurring the regulatory consequences or meeting onerous regulatory requirements.
Regulars will also through the regulatory sandbox approach companies which want to leverage on non-currency related blockchain technology to bring innovations to the capital markets.
Chairman of EASRA Paul Muthaura says it will be important for the capital markets to leverage technology to transform access and their impact on economic development. He adds that the rise of the distributed ledger technology provides an opportunity for capital markets to boost efficiency in the eco-system of fund raising and increase access to long-term capital by business.
The EASRA members also discussed the development process of a strategic plan that will touch on implementation of the risk based supervision, implementation of IFRS (, harmonization of roles of CIS operators, collaboration arrangements with communication regulators and harmonization for insider dealing and market abuse provisions.
