Consolidate Regulatory Reforms in the Securities Sector, Yieldera tells Government

Following the revocation of licenses of 53 fund managers by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017, the sector has seen some changes that suggest efforts at confidence-building are beginning to yield results. The direction and speed of reforms are encouraging. Several initiatives have been introduced, for instance, the Corporate Governance Code, Conduct of Business Guidelines, and reforms in licensing requirements. Two initiatives stand out as most significant. First is the new guidelines by the National Pension and Regulatory Authority that allow fund managers a 15% maximum allocation of fund assets toward alternatives such as private equity. This clearly is good news from a deal-making perspective. Second, an upward review of minimum paid-up capital to GH¢2,000,000 presents sufficient barriers to entry, which may restrain market participants with unbridled risk appetites but weak balance sheets. Also, the coming into being of the Ghana Investment and Securities Institute (GISI) is a step in the right direction, if indeed securities education would address the inadequacies in areas such as securities marketing and other building blocks of effective deal-making, which seem to be the Achilles heel of the current model.