International Organization of Securities Commissions (
IOSCO). The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) was founded in 1974 as a pan-American organisation and has been open to global membership since 1984. The organisation has just under 200 members, consisting of regular and associate members (the majority of which are supervisory bodies) and affiliate members (mainly stock exchanges).
The supreme body is the Presidents' Committee (PC), while executive management is in the hands of the Executive Committee (EC). The latter has two sub-committees: the Technical Committee (TC) and the Emerging Market Committee (EMC), which perform the actual technical work of the organisation. Each of these has permanent working groups (Standing Committees, SC) and ad hoc task forces for special projects reporting to it. Region-specific issues are dealt with in the four Regional Committees. Finally, the SRO Consultative Committee (SRO-CC), whose membership consists mainly of stock exchanges, ensures an ongoing dialogue with practising professionals in the securities markets.
The Swiss regulator has been an ordinary IOSCO member and of its Technical Committee (but not the Executive Committee) since 1996. It regularly attends the meetings of the Presidents' Committee, the Technical Committee, the relevant Standing Committees and the European Regional Committee. SIX Swiss Exchange is a member of the SRO-CC. The principal aims of IOSCO are to protect investors, ensure fair, efficient and transparent markets, prevent systemic risk, promote international cooperation and prepare uniform standards for market supervision.
Objectives and principles of securities regulation
In 1998, IOSCO issued its Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation (
IOSCO Principles), a set of 30 principles governing the supervision of securities trading. Implementation of these principles is the organisation's foremost project. A new methodology for assessing the implementation of these principles (Methodology for Assessing Implementation of the IOSCO Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation,
IOSCO Principles Assessment Methodology) was introduced at the annual meeting in 2003. This enables countries to identify the areas in which their own regulations fail to meet the international standards set out in the IOSCO principles.