The CNMV Chairman, Rodrigo Buenaventura, opened the conference on “Supervisor, crypto-assets and advertising: good industry practice”, organised by the Spanish Fintech and Insurtech Association (AEFI), which was held on 6 April.
In his speech, he reiterated the institution’s commitment to financial innovation “as a means of increasing the competitiveness of markets, reducing costs linked to greater efficiency and making markets more accessible to a wider spectrum of society”.
Buenaventura stressed that one of the CNMV’s four strategic lines for 2022 is “promoting technological developments in securities markets, and preventing their risks”. He also highlighted the role of the CNMV “innovation hub” or FinTech Portal as a continuous communication gateway to provide support to developers and entities on regulatory aspects that could affect their projects.
The CNMV Chairman also advocated and defended technological disruptions: “blockchain technology is changing the dynamics of finance and the contribution of DeFi or decentralised finance will change the way investors interact with markets”.
He explained the reasons why supervisors have issued warnings in respect of the risks that investors are taking when they invest in crypto-assets and also mentioned the increase in financial fraud and the initiatives launched by the CNMV. Buenaventura stated that “many fraudsters advertise with impunity on social media or Internet search engines, and this is where they target their victims”. In his opinion, it is “unjustifiable that companies that disseminate paid advertising on social networks or search engines profit by admitting advertisements from pirate entities, which are publicly warned as being financial boiler rooms”. To this end, he also added that the CNMV is “asking social network companies and Internet search engines to commit, through self-regulation, to ensuring that their networks or pages will not serve as a vehicle for disseminating deception and potential crimes in exchange for increased revenues. But if they do not do so, if they do not assume their responsibility, we will exercise our responsibility by proposing to the Government to analyse a new regulation in Spain to prohibit and sanction this type of practice”.
The CNMV Chairman is aware that financial fraud is a “problem which affects society as a whole”. Therefore, the institution that he chairs has brought together the interests of many public and private entities to try to tackle, as far as possible, this scourge.
Buenaventura also referred to the sandbox as a sign of the CNNV’s involvement in promoting technological digitalisation linked to securities markets and financial services.
See the full text of the speech
Víctor Rodríguez, General Director of the CNMV Policy and International Affairs Directorate-General, also participated in the first roundtable in which issues related to advertising and investor protection were discussed. Francisco del Olmo, Deputy Director of the CNMV’s FinTech and Cybersecurity Department, also participated in the second roundtable discussion, in which he explained the most important aspects of the future regulation for the crypto sector, next steps and challenges.
You can see the video of the conference here
