Buenaventura (CNMV) affirms that the Spanish stock market "should develop faster" and have more listed companies

Indicates that the Spanish stock market has an "inverted pyramid shape", with many firms in the regulated market and few in Growth

MADRID, 24 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), Rodrigo Buenaventura, stated this Tuesday that the Spanish stock market "should develop faster", while indicating that the Spanish stock market has "the shape of an inverted pyramid" .

Specifically, during his speech at the 13th annual conference on Spanish capital markets, organized by the Association of Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), Buenaventura explained that the Spanish stock market is "in the form of an inverted pyramid", with "many companies in the main regulated market" compared to those in the 'Growth' category, something that "should be the other way around".

"It is true that more companies are joining the Growth market than the main one (with 9 companies compared to 4 in 2021), but we need both figures to increase significantly," said Buenaventura.

"It is a fact that the Spanish stock market should develop faster, at least in relation to the number of listed companies", he deepened. He has recalled that the main regulated market, which has the strictest requirements and regulations, has about 130 companies, while the 'Growth', specialized in growing companies, with lower regulatory requirements, has 50 companies.

Likewise, he has stated that other EU Member States have "more vibrant markets for growth", which could be due to different corporate cultures, a "more active" sector of investment companies, a different tradition of investment institutional and pension funds. He has also mentioned the relevance of other aspects, such as fiscal incentives, mechanisms to favor the continuity of liquidity or the intervention of more local financial intermediaries.

On the other hand, Buenaventura has defended the role of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and has asked the European Union (EU) to assign powers to it that the Community Executive applies.

In his speech, the president of the CNMV compared the role of the European supervisor to its English counterpart, the FCA, whose capacity is sought to be "empowered", while the role of the ESMA in the European Union would be limited to designing technical standards or notify Parliament.

"Probably, the legislative configuration and the political culture in the EU do not trust our supervisory agencies enough to carry out the powers that are already attributed to them," he said.

In this way, he has asked to "pause and think" if, after eleven years, the EU agencies such as the ESMA are "mature and have sufficient resources" to begin to exercise powers that the EU still maintains at the political or parliamentary.

"This is not about asking ourselves just what powers Member States or national supervisors can confer, but what powers the EU institutions currently have that can be assigned to ESMA, at least if we want to be as agile, sophisticated and reliable as in the UK. United Kingdom or the United States," added Buenaventura.

On the other hand, it has positively valued the Debra (Debt-Equity Bias Reduction Allowance) proposal that the European Commission has recently presented with the aim of favoring fiscally that companies finance their investments through capital contributions, instead of indebtedness, equaling the fiscal advantages of the first mechanism to those of the debt to improve the resilience of the business fabric.

In this regard, he stated that this equivalence and the different tax configurations are "a common problem" for all the EU Member States. Only six countries (Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Cyprus, Malta and Italy) have taken measures in this regard in their national jurisdictions, but with different approaches in their designs.

"An initiative at a European level is needed through a binding legislative proposal to address the problem in a coordinated manner," said Buenaventura, who also considered that this proposal is the "most significant" to achieve a "true Union of Markets of Capitals".

Likewise, it has requested "clarity" on the interpretation of MiFID, especially in elements related to retail clients, in order to avoid users having worse conditions and different definitions being applied in each national jurisdiction of the EU.