FSB misses its own crowdfunding deadline

South Africa’s Financial Services Board (FSB) has missed a June 30 deadline on considering whether to regulate equity crowdfunding or not.

A FSB spokesperson in April said the authority had set a date of 30 June by which it planned to rule on whether to craft specific rules or not for equity crowdfunding. It followed the completion of a research report by the FSB on crowdfunding.

Read more: South Africa’s FSB to rule on crowdfunding by June 30

However Felicity Mabaso, the FSB’s head of department for FAIS Supervision, stressed that the “crowdfunding project” is still a work in progress.

“We have scheduled further engagements with all relevant parties (internal and external), subject to their availability, whereby remaining aspects of this project will be finalised. We will communicate our position in due course.”

‘We have scheduled further engagements with all relevant parties’

Mabaso said the FSB had “never set any deadline for the crowdfunding project” and that the date of June 30 was rather an internal date set by the FSB itself.

She singled out comments made by FSB deputy executive officer for financial advisory and intermediary services Caroline da Silva in May to Ventureburn when Da Siliva had said that the 30th of June was “a target date in terms our internal project plan”.

Read more: Q&A: FSB’s Caroline da Silva clarifies 30 June deadline on crowdfunding

African Crowdfunding Association chair Kevin Allen who is working with the FSB on crafting regulations for equity crowdfunding told Ventureburn that he had not received any further feedback from the authority on the project.

In December Brazil’s securities exchange commission put out a request for input from the public for equity crowdfunding, while in the same month Chilean authorities authorised the setting up of working groups to look into regulating equity crowdfunding. Thailand and Malaysia released equity crowdfunding regulations in 2015.

Featured image: Investment Zen via Flickr (CC 2.0, resized)