The “Exchanges and the Market Popularization Initiatives for Retail” international seminar was held last afternoon at BM&FBOVESPA headquarters and was attended by representatives from Latin American exchanges, brokerage houses, regulatory bodies, self-regulatory organizations and financial education institutes. The event is part of the annual seminars agenda of the Ibero-American Federation of Exchanges (FIAB) and aims at discussing ways to attract more participants such as investors, issuers and intermediaries, among other publics.
In his seminar-opening speech, the BM&FBOVESPA Chief Executive Officer, Edemir Pinto, said popularization is part of a broad range of initiatives that the Exchange has developed as part of its commitment towards institutional solidification and towards self-regulation as a key to market development. “What started off as a program to promote the importance of the capital market as regards the country’s development, focusing on the role of the brokerage houses and financial intermediaries, soon turned into our commitment towards financial education and to investors’ broad access to information and trading,” he said.
“We have an obligation to explain what the Exchange is, its concepts and its attributions, so that the market can consolidate as a business financing mechanism,” said FIAB president, Joan Hortalà i Arau, who is also Chairman of the Barcelona Stock Exchange. He said no country has obtained sustainable development without a capital market that is structured and, most importantly, widely-promoted.
During the seminar FIAB announced the “São Paulo Declaration”, which highlights how rich the debate is regarding the positive financial education experiences of the organization’s member countries, experiences which are to be shared systematically across the markets. “Over the coming months FIAB, as an organism that generates strategies for the development and integration of its member Exchanges and markets, will look into the options for collaborative work regarding this matter. For example, the creation of a financial education network and the organization of regional meetings and training, with the objective of assuring greater capacity and content in the sharing of experiences that facilitate promotion of the federation’s markets and a growing and broad participation by investors and companies in the development of the Ibero-American economies.”
The event included presentations of products and of trading models aimed at different types of participants, including retail investors, issuers and intermediaries. As well as sharing the member exchanges’ experiences with financial education projects and with products aimed at attracting issuers, the seminar’s participants debated brokerage house initiatives to access retail, and the discussion about how the Latin American market is positioning itself to take on the large global players and attract a larger number of domestic and foreign investors and issuers.
The “São Paulo Declaration” announced during the seminar yesterday is reproduced in full below:
São Paulo Declaration
The "Exchanges and the Market Popularization Initiatives for Retail " themed seminar organized by the Ibero-American Federation of Exchanges (FIAB) in the city of São Paulo generated an exchange of experiences and the identification of challenges regarding the participation of new investors, issuers and others interested in the FIAB member countries’ capital markets.
This was an intense dialog about different experiences of promoting capital markets and Exchanges as business centers for new participants, seeking to attract individual investors, small and midsize companies, institutional investors and the issuers of a wide range of financial instruments and of the financing and investment alternatives offered by the stock market. During the event, several financial education initiatives were highlighted as a common element in the promotion and democratization of markets.
Considering how rich the debate is and bearing in mind FIAB’s objectives and experience in sharing ideas and success stories, it became clear how added value can contribute towards interconnecting financial education institutions in initiatives for the future systematic and sustainable promotion of the full range of markets.
As a result of the seminar, over the next few months FIAB as an organization that generates strategies for the development and integration of the Exchanges and their markets will consider related joint work possibilities. These include the creation of a financial education network and the organization of regional seminars seeking to grant greater consistency in sharing the experiences that facilitate promotion of the Federation’s markets and the broad participation of investors and companies in the development of the Ibero-American economy.
