The law intends to make the cost of supervising the securities market be fully covered by its participants (Stock Market, Ceval, Brokerage Houses and Mutual Funds), who currently contribute 20%.

José Rafael Brenes, head of the National Stock Exchange in Costa Rica, argues that this provision would be lethal to the system, since the cost of monitoring would represent 53% of market participant’s profits, which currently represents 10%.

“Our stock market, rather than develop, has shrunk in size and number of participants. Instead of becoming complex, it has concentrated on very simple instruments: bonds …. 97% of the existing securities are debt instruments and a high share is issued by the Government and commercial banks, which have direct supervisors. Shareholder Emissions are practically nonexistent. If you compare it to GDP, the importance of the market is becoming less and less within the financial system”, argues Brenes in an opinion piece in elfinancierocr.com.

Despite this situation, the budget of the supervisory body of the stock market (SUGEVAL) is about $10.5 million, 50% greater than that assigned to the banking system, “even though the importance of the two areas within the financial system does not maintain the same relationship. ”

Source: El Financiero