Welcome to the FSC's international regulatory co-operation section of the web-site. These pages outline the FSC's powers and provide a description of the processes through which regulatory co-operation with regulators worldwide can be achieved.
As financial services markets become increasingly global, complex and sophisticated in nature, so the opportunities for cross-border crime and other illicit activities have grown. In light of these trends, there has been a growing need for international co-operation amongst financial services regulators to combat financial crime.
Regulatory co-operation is vital in that it allows authorities to effectively supervise international financial institutions as well as to be able to move speedily to protect the financial system and consumers from criminal and other illicit activities.
Exchange of information and co-operation are some of the benchmarks upon which finance centres are judged. Gibraltar has been recognised internationally as a jurisdiction with a robust and effective regulatory environment with a good long standing reputation for co-operation. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) works hard to ensure that it complies with the highest international standards of best practice of regulatory co-operation.
The FSC has a wide range of powers to supervise and enforce the regulatory regime in Gibraltar. Moreover the FSC is able to exercise many of these powers at the request of, or for the purposes of assisting, overseas regulatory authorities. These laws also provide gateways that enable the FSC to communicate information held by it to another regulatory authority in order to assist that authority in the exercise of its own supervisory functions.