Exchanges and CCPs around the world are ringing the bell for financial literacy all week during IOSCO’s World Investor Week. Financial Literacy is fundamental to the work of exchanges and CCPs and the commitment they have towards inclusive and sustainable economic growth, fostering equality and their belief in the power that markets-based financing has to provide solutions and bridge gaps. As an industry, market infrastructures believe it has become even more important at this time of pandemic.

Remarks by

• Benoit de Juvigny, Secretary General of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), France,
• Jean-Paul Servais, Chairman, Financial Services and Markets Authority, Belgium and Vice-Chairman of the IOSCO Board.

The authorities will be holding an in-person event with live streaming. Please join us for a webinar with our colleagues from Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria as we discuss sustainable investments and investor resilience in the region.

Next there will be a cultural moment with the Jovens da Mulemba theater group, as we will bring financial education concepts to the masses. We close the day with a round table about financial education as the pillar to investor protection.

On 3 October 2022, at 9 am (Sao Paulo time – see local time in other jurisdictions), the official opening of the investor week in the Americas will take place in São Paulo, as a joint event hosted by B3 (Brazilian Stock and Derivatives Exchange of Brazil) and the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM). Participants in the Ring the Bell Ceremony will include João Pedro Nascimento, Chairman of the CVM; Christina Rolle, Executive Director, Securities Commission of The Bahamas, Bahamas, and Vice Chair of the IOSCO Inter-American Regional Committee, IARC; Morgan Doyle, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) country representative; and Gilson Finkelsztain, President of B3.

Participants will share their views on how the metaverse is impacting or will impact the capital markets, including in relation to regulation/self-regulation, financial education, investor protection, among other points.

Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd. (FPSB) joins the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) to raise awareness of, and promote financial literacy, during IOSCO’s World Investor Week. Goals: Unite the global financial planning community to raise awareness of the value of financial planning, of having a financial plan and of working with a financial planner who has committed to competency and ethical standards, like a CFP professional.

FPSB CEO Noel Maye and IOSCO Secretary General Martin Moloney discuss the goals and themes for WFPD and WIW and how the financial planning community can support financial education and consumer protection.

The webinar will discuss Crypto and DeFi issues with impact on investor protection and investor education. Financial innovation, like crypto/digital assets and DeFi products and services, may result in greater efficiencies, but they also present risks that investors must understand to take informed investment decisions. The webinar is open to regulators, members of the industry and the general public.

Taking advantage of the findings, tools and key messages of the recently published IOSCO report on Retail Investor Education in the Context of Sustainable Finance Markets and Products, the webinar will discuss the challenges the main challenges for investors and how regulators and other stakeholders could support initiatives to enhance investor protection and investor education in the area of sustainable finance. The webinar is open to regulators, members of the industry and the general public.

The webinar will discuss different elements that are relevant for investors in the current environment, such as inflation, raising interest rates, energy issues, and some geopolitical factors impacting investors’ financial well-being. The discussion will also touch on different tools that could be useful or helpful in terms of enhancing investor resilience, including through the investor education and investor protection perspectives. The webinar is open to regulators, members of the industry and the general public.

Increasing digitalisation and social media are not only changing how financial products are marketed and distributed, but also how retail investors interact with financial products and services. Nonetheless, these developments bring various risks for investors, and challenges for regulators on how to adapt their regulatory and enforcement approaches to the rapidly changing digitalisation trends and online activities. In conjunction with IOSCO’s World Investor Week 2022, this webinar aims to review regulatory and market-wide implications of the evolving digitalisation landscape, including online offering trends and how regulators are responding. Areas of discussion include ways in which firms leverage on behavioural techniques for online marketing, regulatory issues and gaps arising, and approaches to financial literacy in response to these challenges.

As a proud supporter of IOSCO’s World Investor Week, EFAMA is organising an e-seminar to assess the state of sustainable finance literacy for investment and discuss various initiatives which could boost investor education in this regard.

ESG investing is a powerful growing trend and the proliferation of ESG financial products is testament to this. The new MiFID II rules oblige advisers to assess investors’ sustainability preferences before proposing investment products. In light of this, investors will have to strengthen their sustainable finance literacy in order to navigate this new landscape. This will no doubt present challenges as we move beyond the well-established set of recommendations (diversify, invest regularly etc.) to cover other concepts such as sustainability risks, principle adverse impact, environmentally sustainable investments etc. Therefore new initiatives are urgently needed to bridge the gap.