Capital Markets Integration To Create Cross-border Securities Transactions’

Director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr. Lamido Yuguda said, the aim of the West African capital markets integration programme is the creation of an enabling environment for cross-border securities transactions and the integration of all capital markets’ jurisdictions in the ECOWAS region.

Yuguda stated this during a meeting with the director general of SEC Ghana in Accra recently.

According to Yuguda, in view of the enormous potentials of cross border listings, capital markets in the region are expected to develop a tool of cooperation that enables them to effectively police their respective markets and ensure that the standards of regulation set out by IOSCO are sustained, and where possible, improved upon.

He said: “without the readiness of all concerned, the lofty aims of the programme may as well continually remain a dream. It goes to say, unequivocally, that this goal can only be achieved seamlessly when all member states of ECOWAS come on board and actively commit to achieving the noble objectives of the enhanced collaborative structure that these natures of agreements enable.

“On this note, the SEC Ghana and SEC Nigeria, desirous of achieving these ideals, have taken the lead by example and by driving this project in the sub-region while hopefully aiming to someday expand its coverage beyond the sub-regional frontiers onto other parts of the continent of Africa.”