The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) today announced that they are venturing up their exploration into the disruptive potential brought by the new technologies like blockchain, robo-advisors, and cyber security.

IOSCO is an international body that coordinates the world’s securities regulators and is recognized as the global standard setter for the securities sector. Last week, the organization had a two-day meetup in Madrid. The session’s main discussion singled out the research focus on the risks posed by new and emerging digital technologies. The meeting was preceded by previous rounds of discussion on recent market developments and volatility in world capital markets and, the pros and cons from distributed ledger technology and fintech developments. It also centered the discussion around a report work addressing the challenges of cyber risk and the work of its Growth and Emerging Markets Committee on digitisation and fintech.

The organization stated that the previous roundtable discussions had been made with leading market analysts and their main focus was to understand the impact and risks posed by new financial technologies such as distributed ledgers. The organization stressed that it was looking to “improve global market efficiencies, and provide emerging market jurisdictions with the infrastructure needed to further develop their capital markets”.

New disruptive technologies like Blockchain are having a tremendous impact on worldwide capital markets and IOSCO, as it stated, believes it is time to understand the implications and risks posed by these new innovations. The global regulatory body is therefore, committing to research the impact of blockchain, along with the use and regulation of automated advice tools in securities markets.

IOSCO was created in 1983. It was born from an agreement made by 11 securities regulatory agencies from North and South America to build their inter-American regional association into an international cooperative organization. Later, other securities regulators from other countries regulatory agencies came to join the new organization.

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