The Securities Commission of The Bahamas recently hosted securities regulators from 18 jurisdictions across the Americas to discuss cross-cutting securities regulatory matters, further developing the capital markets regulator’s regional and international profile.

The meeting, held 3-4 November, was the second of two general meetings of the Inter-American Regional Committee (IARC) of IOSCO and the Council of Securities Regulators of the Americas (COSRA) held in 2016. The venue for the meeting was Atlantis, Paradise Island.

The commission was represented by Tonya Bastian Galanis, chairman and Christina Rolle, executive director.

Bastian Galanis welcomed the group to The Bahamas at the commencement of the meeting and spoke to the significance of the commission hosting such events.

“Meetings such as these ultimately help us to increase the effectiveness of our regulation in this ever-changing global landscape, but importantly they also demonstrate locally the importance of the financial services sector to our country and that we are committed to sound regulation and hopefully signals the same to the international community,” Bastian Galanis said.

Rolle reinforced the chairman’s comments and noted that hosting this IARC/COSRA meeting advanced a Securities Commission initiative to enhance its international profile as an engaged regulator committed to best practices.

“The commission identified increased participation with regional and international securities regulatory bodies as strategically important to give voice to the particular developmental needs of Bahamian markets and their regulation, and to achieve better representation of local regulatory concerns to international standard setting bodies,” Rolle said.

“We certainly believe we are achieving this goal, as our international counterparts and representatives from various standards setters interact with the commission and its management team, and learn first-hand about our capital markets and financial services industry, and the impact they have on our economy and lives.”