The International Capital Market Association (ICMA), the self regulatory body which represents financial institutions active in the capital markets, has fully endorsed the Principles for Better Regulation’ issued by the International Council of Securities Associations (ICSA) of which it is an active member.
It is now widely recognised that inappropriate or excessive regulation undermines financial markets to the detriment of consumers, businesses and economic growth generally and consequently a number of better regulation’ initiatives have been adopted by governments, regulators and market participants in different countries.
ICSA has drawn together elements from these to produce its ten Principles for better regulation’ to act as a basis for further discussion with regulators and the market.
“ICMA considers the issuing of these principles to be a major step forward in acknowledging the importance of principles based regulation in delivering an adaptable and flexible regulatory regime which will support our members’ activities in rapidly evolving financial markets,” says Ren Karsenti, the Executive President of ICMA.
“ICMA wholly supports the view that regulators should look to other responses to a market problem before resorting to legislative measures,” adds Nick Collier, the Head of Regulatory Policy at ICMA. “As the only pan-European selfregulatory organisation for the capital markets, ICMA’s experience over a period of more than 30 years has shown that self regulation is often a proven and successful alternative to statutory regulatory intervention to correct market failure”.