The Investment Industry Association of Canada, the Japan Securities Dealers Association, the London Investment Banking Association, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (the “Associations”), released a statement today in advance of the meeting of G20 Finance Ministers:
“We welcome the continued focus of G20 Finance Ministers on financial repair and reform. We believe these efforts to date have set the foundation for financial stability, future economic growth and job creation. To maintain momentum for global reform, the Ministers rightly continue to meet and discuss regulatory reactions to the financial turmoil.
“The Associations believe that as countries accelerate the pace of domestic regulatory and legislative reforms, it remains vital to seek a well-balanced and well-coordinated regulatory framework and guard against measures that the G20 committed to avoid – measures that would create barriers to market entry, distort competition, or encourage regulatory arbitrage. We believe that the G20’s approach for coordinated and collaborative global regulatory reform could provide a strong basis for regulatory convergence and mutual recognition.
“Consequently, it is critical that the G20 Finance Ministers remain committed to ensuring that reforms are developed and implemented in a manner that promotes open markets and the free flow of capital. It is in this way that the global economy, as well as the consumers of financial services and products, will benefit most from the new regulatory architecture that the G20 envisages. We are concerned, however, that some recent regional and national regulatory proposals diverge in ways that could create distortions or other barriers in the global marketplace. In these instances, we encourage Ministers to foster, in line with the G20 mandate, the necessary changes to develop consistency with a well-founded global policy approach.
“In light of the FSB’s expanded mandate and the more direct impact of its work with market participants, we believe that Finance Ministers should encourage the FSB to ensure that global policy development is well informed by impact analysis and based on a transparent process and through dialogue with market participants, ensuring reasonable time for comment and discussion. Many global organizations – such as IOSCO, the OECD, Basel, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and APEC – have all endorsed regulatory transparency.”