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. It has also outlined provisions for the evaluation of reputation, character, financial integrity and reliability of market operators.
The adoption of FinTech in the financial market industries in East Africa is ever-rising. Left unregulated, the industry will undoubtedly become flush with fradusters and qcks, hence the EASR’s move to take these measures. 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.
Regulators will also approach companies which want to leverage on non-currency related blockchain technology to bring innovations to the capital markets through the regulatory sandbox.
EASRA Chairman Paul Muthaura urges on the importance of capital markets leveraging technology to transform access and their impact on economic development. He added 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.
EASRA members also discussed the development process of a strategic plan that will impact the 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.