In late September I attended the IOSCO Stakeholders’ Meeting. The international organization is at an important crossroad—it continues to reinforce its role as the key global reference point for securities regulation, while grappling with new and emerging opportunities and risks, including those posed by digitization. It announced last week that Paul Andrews (a 17-year veteran of FINRA) will become the new Secretary General of the IOSCO.

IOSCO recognizes culture as a key ingredient to improved market conduct, and will continue to encourage the global industry to adopt core principles consistent with good culture. The impetus of this exercise is the Fair and Effective Markets Review established by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. IOSCO is also examining the liquidity challenges confronting buy-side institutions in global markets. Some of the regulators who attended the Stakeholders’ Meeting had not taken a definitive position on the liquidity situation, emphasizing the need for further research and analysis, as well as stress testing.

Efforts to address cross-border regulatory challenges and support increased capacity building in emerging markets remain at the forefront of the IOSCO agenda. The international organization released the Final Report of the IOSCO Task Force on Cross-Border Regulation on September 17, 2015. The Task Force developed a broad tool-kit and process to reduce the regulatory barriers for trade in OTC derivatives. IOSCO must decide whether to be proactive in pushing the cross-border agenda as an initiative in its own right, or subsume it under its on-going policy work.

There’s more information and insight in my October Letter from the President. You can access it by clicking here.