JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, May 5, 2021/ -- Online investing portal Wealth Migrate SA (Pty) Ltd (https://WealthMigrate.com)
has been approved as a Category I Financial Services Provider - FSP
47394, which allows it to provide its crowdfunding offering (when a
group of people club together to fund a project or venture) on an
intermediary services basis using shares as a financial product
category.
This marks the completion of a long journey that
Wealth Migrate began about a decade ago. CEO Scott Picken said: “To put
this into perspective, we worked with the Financial Sector Conduct
Authority or FSCA (formerly known as Financial Services Board) for 10
years to allow this to happen, including creating the African
Crowdfunding Association [ACFA] in 2015. Wealth Migrate always had the
objective to offer our crowdfunding offering to investors within a
regulated environment. Obtaining our Category I licensing approval
signifies the achievement of this objective.
“With the approval
of Wealth Migrate SA’s Category I licence by the FSCA, Wealth Migrate is
the leader in obtaining the relevant financial product category
approval from the South African financial services industry regulator.
We now have the required approval and licensing from the FSCA that
allows us to offer our crowdfunding business model to investors,” Picken
added.
He said that the Category I licence approval, “which
represents an important achievement for Wealth Migrate, SA and the whole
continent”, comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in
an increased adoption of online and digital platforms.
ACFA head
Elizabeth Howard welcomed the news, saying: “You are not only the first
in Africa to be officially regulated, but you also have the only
platform which is purpose built with our own IP and integrated into a
European PSP [payment service provider] with European regulation.”
The
ACFA has been campaigning with many platforms from all over Africa to
bring in a regulatory framework to ensure compliance, said Picken. “Now
that there is someone who can work and engage with the regulator and
give them peace of mind it provides a catalyst for growth for SA and the
continent as a whole.”
Our Category I licence approval also
provides investors, who are used to dealing with regulated companies and
financial services providers, with a greater sense of security and
peace of mind, Picken said.
After a crowdfunding event it
arranged in October 2015, the first of its kind in SA, Picken had said
the company would love to be regulated, but at the time there was no
regulation. Unfortunately, Picken was misquoted in the media, so it
seemed he had said the firm was already regulated. The then FSB (now
FSCA) responded by saying that Wealth Migrate was not regulated, though
was quick to add that there were no crowdfunding regulations in place,
so the company was not doing anything illegal.
This led to Wealth
Migrate setting up the ACFA with 24 other partners from around Africa
in November 2015, which started the process of defining best-practice
guidelines and getting the space fully regulated.
For Picken,
obtaining the Category I licence approval allows Wealth Migrate SA to
maintain its commitment to using technology to remove the middleman, cut
costs and increase trust and transparency. “This allows us to pursue
our purpose, which is to close the wealth gap,” he said.
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