Consultation has opened on funding and levy options to enable the FMA to oversee three new legislative regimes: Conduct of Financial Institutions (CoFI), Insurance Contract Law (ICL) and Climate-related Disclosures (CRD).
“As the financial markets conduct regulator, the FMA plays a critical role in ensuring New Zealand’s financial markets are fair, efficient and transparent,” Tom Simcock, Manager Financial Markets, MBIE says.
“The FMA’s funding was last reviewed in 2019/20. With its remit now expanding to cover the CoFI, ICL and CRD regimes, the FMA requires additional funding from 2022/23 onwards.”
The FMA and MBIE, as the FMA’s monitoring agency, are consulting on proposed options to ensure the FMA is sufficiently funded to be a credible regulator and successfully implement the new regimes.
The consultation seeks to ensure that levy settings are proportionate to the additional resource required.
“The three regimes will increase consumer and investor trust and reduce consumer harm.,” says Simcock. “It’s important that New Zealanders have confidence in our financial markets and that our financial institutions are working in customers’ best interests.
“At the same time, we want to find the right balance where industry levies are not overly burdensome and do not act as a barrier to entry for new firms bringing healthy competition into the market.”
Consultation closes on 7 November. To find out more and have your say, go to the MBIE website.