The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has organized an informative session at its head office to consult about agricultural warehousing regulations and commodities-based collateral and financing ecosystem.

Several stakeholders from the State Bank of Pakistan, officials from the ministry of agriculture has attended the session along with others such as Zarai Taraqiyati Bank, National Rural Support Program and National Bank of Pakistan joined the session.

Representatives from many other commercial banks have also joined the session. Other banks included were Habib Bank Limited (HBL), MCB Bank, Meezan Bank, United Bank Limited (UBL), Central Depository Company of Pakistan, Pakistan Mercantile Exchange, Pakistan Microfinance Network, Pakistan Microfinance Investment Company, provincial departments of agriculture from Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan Agriculture Coalition, telecommunication companies (Mobilink and Telenor).

The executive director of SCEP has enlighten the role of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan towards modernizing agricultural market of Pakistan. He highlighted that for developing countries warehouse and collateral management is very important for agriculture value chain.

In the session, he briefed about the recently notified collateral management framework to the participants. A detailed premutation on practical and operational features of collateral management ecosystem was delivered by an international expert on commodities market Dr. Andre Van der Vyver. During interactive part of session participants have actively asked question about their queries and offered input and suggestions for the way forward.

The participants suggested and emphasized that SCEP and State bank of Pakistan along with other stakeholders need to have continuous collaboration for developing regulatory frame work and roadmap for the commodity market.

Collateral Management Companies (Establishment & Operations) Regulations has been issued by SCEP 2017 on May 2, 2017 for the recruitment of warehousing regulations implementations, a modern collateral management regulatory regime in Pakistan.