The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) reviews efforts to combat misconduct in wholesale financial markets in the wake of the market manipulation scandals involving some of the world’s leading financial firms, in a report published on Tuesday.
The report from IOSCO’s task force on wholesale market conduct sets out measures that regulators around the world are taking to prevent and sanction misconduct in markets that tend to be particularly opaque, and pose certain conflicts of interest.
It aims to provide regulators with tools to help address these risks in their own markets.
According to the report, regulators are using tailored enforcement and remedial sanctions, mandating market structure reforms, stepping up surveillance to identify suspicious trades, and enhancing protection for whistleblowers, in order to help deal with wholesale market risks.
In addition, regulators are adopting tools designed to enable them to track “bad apples,” the reports says, and to oversee increasing automation, by regulating high frequency trading and direct electronic access, among other things,
“Misconduct erodes investor trust and confidence in financial services and undermines the effective operation of financial markets, including wholesale markets. The LIBOR and FX scandals highlight the severe consequences when firms or individuals fail to manage risk effectively or to observe proper standards of market conduct. This report provides tools to help IOSCO members minimize conduct risk in wholesale markets,” says Ashley Alder, chairman of the IOSCO board and chairman of the group’s task force on market conduct, in a statement.