SECP committed to industry policy

ISLAMABAD: Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Chairman Aamir Khan has said that the commission has instituted various reforms to develop a comprehensive and coherent industrial policy to share regulatory thinking and promote a conducive FinTech environment in Pakistan, and the regulatory sandbox initiative is part of this agenda, a statement said on Tuesday.

He was addressing a webinar on “Second Cohort of SECP’s Regulatory Sandbox”, organised by the commission to create awareness regarding the concept of the regulatory sandbox and describe its benefits to industry and working modalities. Khan said that the FinTech industry is growing significantly in Pakistan and can play a vital role in expanding financial inclusion. However, the innovations brought about by this growth, pose challenges for the regulators and financial supervisors, who are tasked with reducing the uncertainty.

To address this challenge, the SECP chairman said, the commission has introduced the concept of the regulatory sandbox, which provides a tailored regulatory environment to conduct limited-scale live tests of innovative products, services, and business models under the regulator’s oversight.

In the second cohort of regulatory sandbox, preference would be given to innovation in the areas of digital assets / security token offerings (STOs), non-bank financial companies, blockchain / distributed ledger solutions for capital markets, digital identity / AML / KYC, AI, machine learning and robotic processes automation-based solutions, he said.

The SECP officials gave a comprehensive presentation on the sandbox’s mechanism, including details of eligibility criteria, application procedure, evaluation process and answer the participants queries.