The Securities Industry Association (SIA) and American Bankers Association (ABA) have joined a project initiated by EU's Futures and Options Association (FOA) and the British Bankers Association (BBA) to improve regulatory harmonisation for firms conducting transatlantic business in equities and equity derivatives.
Last year the FOA appointed law firm Clifford Chance to analyse and compare licensing and business rules that companies currently have to abide by when conducting financial service business across the Atlantic.
FOA says currently the regulatory frameworks in both regions are geographically-based and need to be changed in order to take into account the increasingly global nature of providing financial services.
The SIA and ABA have now joined the project – which is scheduled for completion by June 2005 – and will work with the FOA and BBA to identify regulatory inefficiencies, conflict, duplication, complexity or cost and put forward a business case as to how they should be addressed.
Ian Mullen, chief executive, BBA, comments: "As banks increasingly expand their global presence, they need to comply with more and more diverse local regulations. A truly dynamic transatlantic market in financial services can only be achieved if regulation is workable and harmonised."
Becky Morter, executive director of ABA afiliate Bankers' Association for Finance and Trade, adds: "Regulatory compliance for international banks and other financial firms grows more costly every day. We have to do all we can to eliminate redundant regulations that unnecessarily add to this burden."