Market regulation now more efficient with technology, Says SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has said that regulation of the market in a technology-driven era is now more efficient and that is why it is stepping up its use in regulation to ensure that investors in the capital market are adequately protected.

This was revealed recently by Ms. Mary Uduk, Acting Director General of the SEC, she said that the Commission is continuing to deploy technology in regulation.

Uduk stressed further, “Our regulation is becoming better and more efficient. We are able to tap into data we could not tap into before, so these now make regulation easier and more efficient and make us better able to protect investors.

“We have also continued to encourage the members of the capital market community to embrace technology to make it easier for themselves and investors to invest. These days we have a lot of improvements, as now most stock broking firms have platforms you can just log in and buy on your own.

“As technology is improving access to the market it’s also improving the ability of the regulator to better regulate the market”.

Uduk said it is based on the foregoing that the Capital Market Committee decided to embrace Financial technology for easy accessibility.

She said, “One of the major reasons for the acceptance of technology in the financial sector is that it makes things very easy to access and also to achieve. FINTECH has come to stay and the sooner we acknowledge and accept it the better for everyone. SEC constituted a Market-Wide FinTech Road Map Committee because we have realized that we live in a technologically driven era, and it is only important that the Commission embraces this trend and create an enabling environment for technology to positively impact on our market.

“We support FinTech by engaging and guiding Fintech start-ups that seek to operate in the Nigerian capital market. As the regulator, we are also working on adopting Fintech and Regtech in our regulatory operations while we encourage those we regulate to embrace Fintech, not as competitor, but as enablers to their existing operations and processes.

“Specifically, we are looking into the area of crowdfunding, cryto assets, robo advisory and distribution of collective investment schemes products through fintechs. We need to be able to balance our objective of protecting investors and encouraging innovation and development in the market”.

Uduk further explained that the Commission has specified minimum operating standards for capital market operators, the exchanges and everyone.

These standards she said, includes risk management tools embedded in them, as well as security tools.

“So, we have not been seeing a lot of these fraudulent activities, its actually on the low and falling. But our enforcement department is up and doing and keep nipping these cases in the bud when they happen.

“But we believe that as we keep improving our risk management aspects of our operating standards both from the regulatory side and the market side these things will be on the reducing side.