Abstract: | The changes affecting the financial services sector present regulatory authorities with significant challenges. One such challenge is to develop cost-effective administrative structures for efficient monitoring and supervision which reduce the level of information asymmetry between regulatory agencies and between regulators and financial services sector firms. Using the financial services sector, banking and non-banking, of Namibia as case study, the author presents the key issues in the debate on appropriate institutional regulatory structures and discusses the merits and demerits of consolidated versus diversified agency supervision. He notes that the optimal structure is country dependent. In the case of Namibia, the Bank of Namibia needs to be clearly established as the systemic and lead regulatory agency. To protect consumer and social welfare via conduct of business supervision and monitoring, there might be a need to establish a Namibia Financial Institutions Commission. Bibliogr., notes, sum. |