Crowd-funding must follow requirements, says Yaninen

CROWD-funding initiatives must satisfy all the requirements of the Capital Markets Act 2015, says Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME) Council president Des Yaninen.
Yaninen said it included using a licensed institution to raise the funds from the public and issue prospectus, among other requirements.
He was responding to questions from The National on a recent crowd-funding initiative by some of the PNG’s Think Tanks to get into the banking industry.
The Bank of PNG (BPNG) also has requirements to be met.
“All capital raising or crowd-funding is regulated by the Capital Markets Act of 2015,” Yaninen said.
“That means that the crowd-funding initiative needs meet all the requirements.
“These include using only a licensed institution to raise the funds from the public and also to issue things like a prospectus and that sought of thing.
“And then if you want to set a bank or a financial institution, then the BPNG has its own requirements as well.
“So as long as the crowd funding initiative satisfies the requirements of the Capital Markets Act of 2015, which is governed by the Securities Commission, and its satisfies the requirements of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, then it should be good.
“But for now it’s probably too early to comment on the outcome.
“But certainly for any entity to raise funds, it has to be a viable concept and you have to show to the shareholders and investors that they can make money from it.”
Attempts to get comments from BPNG were unsuccessful.