FSRA tightens supervisory role to strengthen oversight

THE Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) is in the process of refreshing and reviewing their legislation for financial service providers (FSPs) operations.

They have to present and make submissions to the minister of finance.

Some of the policies have already gone through the processes to refresh their regulatory framework.

This was shared by FSRA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ncamiso Ntshalintshali yesterday during the FSRA Media Engagement Forum held at Nkonyeni Golf Estate.

The strategic engagement aimed to forge a positive relationship with the media, address key issues and highlighted ongoing efforts to ensure a stable, transparent and inclusive financial environment in the country.

Ntshalintshali said what has been critical is getting assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) around risk-based supervision.

He said what it entails is to strengthen and enhance their early warning systems, where regulation and supervision is concerned.

“For example, we have been going through a round of self-risk assessments with the financial service providers that we are supervising. The intention is to ensure that when they are old, they can self-assess on compliance measures.

This is so that when we get to engage with them on-site, or even on off-site surveillance we are at par with their understanding of their compliance obligations,” Ntshalintshali said.

At this point, he said they have done the assessments with quite a number of significant institutions already and now looking at ensuring that the pillars or the standards they have to enforce traditionally in terms of the risk assessments are ones that are responding to their operations.

Ntshalintshali added that what they have seen over the years with the returns they got from the FSPs were some gaps with regards to imaging products and the imaging risk realised in the spaces, as much as they are part of the legal framework.

He said this was quite an improvement for them to know off-site that the heat maps around the areas of supervision are in these areas and are getting close to them.