SECURITIES and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SecZim) has established an innovation office at its headquarters in Harare to bring modernity and innovation to the market.
Speaking at the opening of the office, SecZim chief executive officer Anymore Taruvinga said the innovation office was a dedicated function within the commission primarily meant to engage, communicate as well as guide innovators through the existing capital market regulatory landscape.
The SecZim Innovation Office is being introduced into the capital market to promote innovation, improve efficiency in service delivery, facilitate integration of Fintech to an existing intermediary infrastructure and inform regulatory and policy framework improvements.
“The function of the office is thus mainly premised on facilitating a mutually beneficial engagement between the commission and the market,” Taruvinga said, noting that the office is the company’s first step in spearheading its regulatory Sandbox.
The Sandbox platform is a sanitary and controlled environment that can be used to experiment with innovations across the payments and financial space.
“With time and resources, our endeavour is to have a full-fledged regulatory Sandbox that will allow even more robust engagement with innovators for the purposes of proofing concepts, testing new products and services and shaping regulation.”
The regulatory body is hopeful that the office will help it catch up to other jurisdictions that already have regulatory Sandboxes.
“I, therefore, encourage all SMIs and potential innovators out there to unleash your innovative ideas and engage our Innovation Office,” Taruvinga added.
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Speaking at the meeting, SecZim board chairperson Yona Banda said the innovations promoted transparency, particularly in pricing mechanisms for farmers in remote parts of the country and assisted in the fight against money laundering.
“Innovation must usher in the ease of doing business and improve efficiency especially for retail investors in different parts of the country thereby broadening our investor base,” Banda said.
“Embracing Fintech is inevitable given the changing operating environment. It’s either we adapt as a market, or we face the wrath of risks often associated with unregulated markets.”
Encouraging the regulatory board to be innovative and make the market accessible to the marginalised sectors that include medium and small-scale enterprises, he added: “This is very important that the innovations that we are speaking to should actually trickle down to those sectors in our economy which give impact to our national aspirations.”
