Tomorrow morning Sean Hughes will get down to work as the head of the new Financial Markets Authority, an opportunity he says was too good to refuse.
“Our number one priority is to lift investor confidence in the New Zealand market and grow that market. That means getting people comfortable about coming back and investing in the sharemarket and other markets,” he says.
Around $8.5 billion was lost in recent the finance company meltdown, almost $2000 for every New Zealander.
“It’s been a tragedy what’s happened and we accept that,” Mr Hughes says.
“The last eight, 10 years the existing regulator has sort of sat on the fence, I think I’d characterise that as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. And a pretty late arriving one at that,” says John Hawkins of the Shareholders’ Association.
The new authority will have extra powers and an increased budget.
A major task will be prioritising dozens of existing inquiries launched by the Securities Commission.
“I think they need to be proactive, they need to be speedy in their processes, they need to be quite aggressive at chasing the people who break the law,” Mr Hawkins says.
The authority is going to demand greater disclosure of the risks people face when they consider making an investment.
“No investment is free of risk, and provided investors understand what risks they are taking, and they get all the right information to understand what those risks are, then I am hoping, and I believe it will be a safer place to invest,” he says.
Mr Hughes says he is keen to encourage people to shift some of their savings from property and term deposits into other investments like the sharemarket – something he says will ultimately help grow the economy and create jobs.
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