CMA Chief: Market Revamp Matches Kuwait Development Drive

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Interview by Abdullah Al-Khateeb
KUWAIT, Jan 9 (KUNA) -- Kuwait's Capital market Authority (CMA) commits to invigorating the capital market, boosting its competitive edge, revamping its investment climate and promoting disclosure and transparency in line with Kuwait's development vision, said the CMA's chief.
"The CMA is currently seeking to complete the phases of the capital market system invigoration program by launching the second part of the third phase involving various and essential output," said Ahmad Al-Malhem, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners and Executive Director of the CMA in an interview to KUNA on Thursday.
In this regard, he cited the establishment of the central broker of the stock market and the completion of the monetary settlement through settlement banks and the Real Time Gross Settlement System (KASSIP).
He added that this stage also includes the promotion of brokerage business models to the qualified broker model by means of creating a stock market-registered qualified stock broker through the CMA, and providing the congenial legislative and operational atmosphere for exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
It also embraces creating sub-accounts within the combined accounts of investment firms' wallet clients and electronic trading clients, and overhauling the regulatory system for new financial and investment products and services, he remarked.
Once the second part of the third stage has been done, the CMA will seek to put in place the fourth stage of the project whose output is mainly intended to create the central broker of the derivatives market, introduce the clearance model and create the legislative and operational atmosphere for financial derivatives, Al-Malhem elaborated.
Regarding the obligatory application of electronic disclosure by using the XBRL (a standards-based way to communicate and exchange business information between business systems), he said that the move, which took effect on January 5, would promote transparency and disclosure at capital markets.
He underlined that this would be attained through unifying the concepts and elements of disclosure in a bid to make it easy for all dealers to deal with this system and to ensure accurate and credible disclosed data and information.
The system, he maintained, would also contribute to cutting the burdens of commitment and review for all dealers in view of human efforts and financial expenses, as well as streamlining the exchange of data and information among dealers, including companies, individuals, audit offices and regulators.
Furthermore, the system embraces an integrated portal that provides all required tools and solutions for disclosures and dealing with data so easily and smoothly, Al-Malhem added.
The CPA chief went on saying that XBRL-used electronic disclosures allow the online publishing of data and information in order to provide resilience and smoothness for dealers to use in analyses and technical studies and comparison among different businesses in terms of performance.
The system would contribute to revamping the market performance, improving the investment climate and boosting the competitive edge of Kuwaiti financial markets compared with other markets, he stressed.
It would further bring multiple benefits to corporate shareholders and investors in general, and provide thorough, credible and timely financial and non-financial date and information, he added.
Al-Malhem concluded by saying that the system, however, includes security and technical restrictions on the user scope according to specific purposes, thus staving off any possible abuse and cutting administrative burdens. (end)
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