Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the capital’s new investment free zone, has appointed four senior regulators from Australia, the United Kingdom, India and China to oversee regulatory decisions.
The new regulatory committee will be chaired by the Australian lawyer and the former chairman of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, Jane Diplock.
It will also include the former general counsel to the UK financial regulator Andrew Whittaker, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India Chandrashekhar Bhaskar Bhave and former deputy director of international affairs at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Xiaodong Tang.
The committee will be tasked with supporting the independence, integrity and procedural fairness of the free zone’s regulatory arm, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority.
ADGM said that the committee would “provide an independent review of a wide range of administrative decisions made by the regulator and … in some cases, consider and determine executive decisions referred to it by the FSRA”.
ADGM, which is based on the capital’s Al Maryah Island, awarded its first full financial licence to Afkar Capital, an incubator for asset management fund start-ups, on Monday, after the financial centre opened in October.
Afkar is likely to be the first of many debutants at ADGM’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi, which has already admitted 17 non-financial licensees.
Initially, the free zone will focus on private banking and wealth and asset management, but it has been designed to accommodate the full spectrum of the financial services industry.
“The regulatory committee is an extension of ADGM’s commitment to advocating and upholding the highest level of international regulatory standards and governance practice at ADGM,” said Ahmed Al Sayegh, the chairman of ADGM.
Ms Diplock is best known for her role as the chairwoman of the now-disbanded securities commission of New Zealand between 2001 and 2011, where she was credited with strengthening confidence in New Zealand’s capital markets overseas.
ADGM is regarded as an essential element of Abu Dhabi’s long-term strategy of economic diversification.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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The currency conundrum
Russ Mould, investment director at online trading platform AJ Bell, says almost every major currency has challenges right now. “The US has a huge budget deficit, the euro faces political friction and poor growth, sterling is bogged down by Brexit, China’s renminbi is hit by debt fears while slowing Chinese growth is hurting commodity exporters like Australia and Canada.”
Most countries now actively want a weak currency to make their exports more competitive. “China seems happy to let the renminbi drift lower, the Swiss are still running quantitative easing at full tilt and central bankers everywhere are actively talking down their currencies or offering only limited support," says Mr Mould.
This is a race to the bottom, and everybody wants to be a winner.
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