Sebi body to set up securities training institute in Pakistan MUMBAI: Sebi-promoted National Institute of Securities Market (NISM) has agreed to offer its help to set up a securities training institute in Pakistan. This is part of the capacity building cooperation measures that the financial market regulators and intermediaries of India and Pakistan have finalized.

This move was confirmed by Imtiaz Haider, commissioner, securities market, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). "Initially, we plan to conduct a week-long course for people of Pakistan at NISM. On our part, we have also invited them to attend the Lahore Economic Conference in February and we will take it forward from there," Haider, who is leading the delegation under the Aman Ki Asha (Hope for Peace) initiative, said. Aman Ki Asha is the initiative of the two largest media groups of both the countries-The Times of India and the Jang/Geo group of Pakistan, and is being coordinated by the South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE)-the industry association of the stocks and commodity exchanges of the region.

On Wednesday, the delegates from Pakistan's capital market exchanged views with top officials from Sebi to learn about each other's markets and explore avenues for future cooperation. The delegates explored many areas of cooperation like investor protection and education, IPO reforms, listing of SMEs and market operations etc. Haider, the leader of the focus group from Pakistan, said that the visit has been a great learning experience for the entire team. Moving forward, he expects capacity building cooperation with the Indian regulators as well as other capital market institutions in India.

On Wednesday, the 18-member delegation met Rajeeve Agarwal, whole time member, Sebi, and S Ramann and PK Nagpal, both executive directors at the regulatory body. Top officials from NISM were also present at the meeting. Later in the day, the Pakistani team also met top officials from NSE, NSCCL and NCDEX. The group also had a meeting with Jignesh Shah, chairman & group CEO, Financial Technologies. FTKMC, a group entity facilitated the delegates visit in Mumbai. The delegation is scheduled to meet top officials of BSE on Thursday before departing for Pakistan.

According to Hanif Jhakura, CEO, Central Depository Company of Pakistan, the visit has highlighted the role of cross border investments in sensitizing the populations of each other's countries so as to enable them to start viewing each other as friendly asset classes. Another member of visiting group, Abdul Qadir Memon, stated that the mood of the meeting at Sebi and NSE had been that both sides remain willing to scale up the level of cooperation and to link both the markets as part of expanding the global outreach of their domestic markets.

The 18-member delegation also comprised M Asif, commissioner, Insurance Division, SECP, Aftab Ahmed Chaudhry, secretary general, SAFE and MD, Lahore Stock Exchange, Ali Azeem, director, SAFE, M Luqman, CEO, National Clearing Company of Pakistan, Mian Ayaz Afzal, MD, Islamabad Stock Exchange, Yasir Mahmood, ex-chairman, Lahore Stock Exchange, and Omer Iqbal Pasha, CEO, Pasha Securities.

Courtesy by TNN | Times of India

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