Abbas stated that the takeoff has been very encouraging as SEC is gaining traction with market participants showing more interest and have commenced the first stage which is the initial fintech assessment route.
He disclosed that, before the take-off, SEC has been having engagement with various fintech applicants some of whom are existing capital market operators. Speaking on the legitimacy criteria, Abbass said: “right, there are five legitimacy criteria. First of all, you must have a kind of idea that will really bring a solution to an existing problem. That is one of the legitimacy criteria.
“Thirdly, you must be able to be ready, to test live using a new test scope of the market with live investors or live customers as it were and then you must be able to commit that you will abide by the rules and regulations if you are on boarding and the last issue is that you should be ready to now commit that once the rules are put in place after you come out of the regulatory incubation you must now comply with the existing rule that will come out as a result of that testing because we too...
“So in terms of response , we just started we are already getting more applications, even this morning we received quite a number. So I can say we have quite a number of applicants that are really interested in this testing using the regulatory incubation that the SEC has come up with.”