Capital market operators who would like to engage in assisting firms to raise capital in the form of Initial Public Offerings and bonds should be ready to obtain separate licenses for such activities anytime soon.
It follows plans by the regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, to ensure sanity in the market.
This will also mean that the specific activity will among others require a minimum capital needed to operate.
Currently, capital market operators require just one license which allows them to undertake a wide array of advisory and other industry-related activities.
The CEO of Databank Group, Kojo Addae-Mensah, told Citi Business News the new directive should build a robust investment market for the country.
“The licenses some look universal. Here I am, a corporate advisory unit, I am trying to do an IPO for a company; meanwhile the same time I have somebody who is trading and watching what is going on the stock market, and the same time you have another person who is a fund manager doing the analysis of the firms.”
“There are no clear cut lines in between what you can do and can’t do. You get one license, and you are using it to do various things. This is just to bring more sanity into the investment banking space,” he said.