world map, emerging markets and international global businesses
kentoh/123RF

Regulators, policymakers and financial industry standards setters are stepping up cooperation to provide oversight of the financial system’s critical plumbing.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) published a report on Tuesday that examines cooperation to ensure the safety and efficiency of financial market infrastructures (FMIs).

The report found that cooperation among regulators and others to oversee FMIs — such as payment systems, securities settlement systems, central counterparties and trade repositories — is evolving, and that cooperative agreements are becoming more numerous and more important.

It also details the ways authorities cooperate, and sets out effective practices that may help develop new cooperative arrangements and improve existing agreements.

The report doesn’t establish new standards or introduce new guidance on regulatory cooperation in this area.

The increased reliance on cooperation comes “against a backdrop of increasingly globalized markets and growing central clearing of trades,” the groups noted.