The new Chair of the American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Paul Atkins, paid a visit to the FSMA during his first trip abroad. Jean-Paul Servais, Chair of the FSMA and of the international organization of securities commissions IOSCO, welcomed him and gave him a guided tour of the Wikifin Lab, the FSMA’s financial education centre.
Both Chairs discussed, inter alia, the importance of financial education that must contribute to the resilience of financial consumers and the development of capital markets. In Belgium, the FSMA was entrusted with the legal duty to contribute to financial education. To this end, it launched the Wikifin programme in 2013 that has since become very successful. The Wikifin website receives 6 million visits per year. The Wikifin Lab offers secondary school students a unique interactive experience in financial education. Since its opening in 2020, the Wikifin Lab has been fully booked.
Paul Atkins and Jean-Paul Servais also discussed IOSCO’s role in promoting cross-border cooperation between the IOSCO members that is key to ensuring financial market integrity and investor protection. They also spoke about the international efforts in a number of topical issues, such as financial technologies and their impact on the capital markets.
Afterwards, Jean-Paul Servais declared he looked forward to further cooperation with the SEC: ‘I look forward to continue this dialogue with the SEC and all IOSCO members and to jointly build strong and resilient financial markets.’
