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The World Federation of Exchanges’ (WFE) Regulation Committee will be headed by Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME) as of July, as the debate on financial regulation reform takes centre stage at an international level.
The Regulation Committee is the World Federation of Exchanges’ main technical group, as shown by the fact that Richard Ketchum, the NYSE representative who had been on this Committee up to now, has been appointed Chairman of one of the most important bodies in the US – the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), replacing Mary Schapiro, who is now the SEC’s Chairman.
The World Federation of Exchanges comprises the 51 largest stock exchanges in the world, on which over 46,000 companies are listed. The WFE’s mission is to develop and promote the best standards in financial markets. The capitalisation of the companies listed on these markets in 2008 reached $33 trillion and over €113 trillion’s worth in shares and 17 billion derivatives contracts were traded on them transparently.
The Committee’s functions are, among others, to foster the stock exchanges’ relations with international regulatory agencies, such as IOSCO or the SEC, answer public consultations developed by these bodies for the reform of regulatory environments, coordinate the work carried out by the stock exchange’s legal divisions at an international level, study new trends in regulation, legislation and supervision of financial markets and draw up legal reports.
BME also presides over the Federation of European stock exchanges’ (FESE) Task Force on MiFID. The mission of this Committee is to coordinate the actions of the European stock exchanges vis a vis regulators in Brussels, discuss the Directive, follow its functioning closely in order to identify any potential negative impact on financial markets and report them to interested parties, such as supervisors, legislators or market participants.
