A tradition of openness and transparency informs the regulatory approach of Finansinspektionen, Sweden's financial markets regulator. Director general Ingrid Bonde spoke to Complinet about the regulator's domestic and international priorities, and highlighted some of the paths to successful regulation in the common market.
Bonde landed at FI in 2003, in the eye of a perfect storm. Sweden's life insurance sector was engulfed in a solvency crisis precipitated largely through declining equity rices and interest rates. At the same time, the FI's funding had dwindled to leave it the poorest resourced of all European regulators relative to market size. Bonde's strident advice to the Government on her appointment was that it needed to resource the regulator properly if it wanted a professional supervisor capable of making an effective impression on the market.
The Government responded with a vastly improved annual budgetary allocation. Bonde immediately set about reviewing outmoded regulatory models and implementing more risk based regulatory tools. She tackled issues such as inadequate disclosure of information, unresolved conflicts of interest and market confidence.
See full Article, in pdf format.
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