By Gavin Adamson
(September 30 – 12:15 ET) – New securities policies governing Internet transactions and information delivery will be released the end of the year. National policies 11-201 and 47-201, are substantially complete, says Randee Pavalow, a director of market regulation at the Ontario Securities Commission.
There are no outstanding issues, he says, and once each province reviews them, they will be transformed into policy within a few months. Pavalow made the statement yesterday at the Investment Funds Institute of Canada conference in Toronto.
A surprisingly small number of fund companies and dealers use the Internet to distribute anything more then basic marketing material. Prospectuses and other material portfolio information are still released on paper.
While Pavalow made it clear that paper statements will still serve as the most fundamental legal form in the near future, fund companies and dealers will have the green light to go digital once the policies are in place.
Gordon Divitt, president of FundSERV Inc. in Toronto, says once the policies are in place, they will be combined with a series of national legislative changes collectively called C-54. That means fund companies will have the ‘go-ahead’ to communicate electronically, he says.
Everyone’s been held up by Y2K, and into the year 2000, says Divitt, but he expects fund companies and dealers will soon begin to concentrate on other digital initiatives.