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Schlettwein retables FIM Bill for the third time

Schlettwein retables FIM Bill for the third time

Finance Minister Calle Schlettwein re-tabled the Financial Institutions and Markets (FIM) Bill for the third time, at the National Assembly on 20 February.

Schlettwein urged lawmakers to consider passing the Bill in order to enable the implementation of the long-overdue reforms and modernization in the non-banking financial sector.

The first introduction and tabling of the Bill was in June 2019 and the subsequent re-tabling on the 17 September 2019. On both instances, the considerations on the Bill could not be exhausted due to effluxion of time.

The FIM Bill, which seeks to consolidate and upgrade the various stand-alone laws under the mandate of the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa), is one of the three interconnected pieces of legislation, namely the Namfisa Bill 2019 and the Financial Services Adjudicator Bill 2019. Due their cross-referencing, the three Bills were tabled simultaneously for concurrent consideration and since then, the House has only passed the Namfisa Bill and the Financial Services Adjudicator Bill.

Schlettwein, upon re-tabling the bill said the non-banking financial sector, whose asset base is about twice the size the Gross Domestic Product, plays a key role in the Namibian economy and the stability of the financial system.

As such, the minister stressed that the regulatory framework must necessarily be up to date to ensure that market and systemic risks are effectively deterred and managed and that the industry contributes optimally to national development objectives.

“The FIM Bill brings forth the legislative framework which balances among the imperative of business growth, domestic economic and financial markets development as well as the risk-based supervision framework for this systematically important industry,” Schlettwein said.


 

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Donald Matthys

Donald Matthys has been part of the media fraternity since 2015. He has been working at the Namibia Economist for the past three years mainly covering business, tourism and agriculture. Donald occasionally refers to himself as a theatre maker and has staged two theatre plays so far. Follow him on twitter at @zuleitmatthys