SEC ramps up education drive for investors

MANILA, Philippines — Corporate regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to educate the public regarding legitimate investments.

The SEC has seen an increase in entities offering supposed virtual currencies and play-to-earn opportunities promising high returns within short periods of time.

This year alone, the SEC has already issued 75 advisories against groups and individuals who have been soliciting investments from the public without the necessary licenses.

A total of 115 and 126 advisories were issued in 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Most recently, the SEC cautioned the public against investing in Lodi Technologies Inc., which was found offering a supposed utility token called Lodi Coins, despite not being registered with the regulatory authorities.

The SEC joined the celebration of World Investor Week this month, a global campaign by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) that encourages securities regulators to put a spotlight on efforts to promote investor protection. This year’s theme highlights the importance of investor resilience and sustainable finance.

“We’re pushing messages in relation to fraud, the risk that anyone could fall into a fraudulent trap. It doesn’t matter how wise you are, it happens to all of us,” IOSCO secretary general Martin Moloney said in a message for the SEC’s celebration of World Investor Week.

“We’re also pushing the message of the importance of investor resilience. Markets don’t always go well, things don’t always go well in your personal life and you have to do financial planning so as to prepare for the periods when you need to be resilient when things aren’t going that well,” he said.

As part of World Investor Week, the SEC held a two-day discussion on when and where to invest, highlighting the advantages of investing in legitimate investments such as stocks, bonds, real estate investment trusts, and mutual funds.

“Moving forward, the SEC will bring its investor education campaign to even greater heights,” SEC chairperson Emilio Aquino said.

This year, the SEC also partnered with social financial platform Investa, which operates the website Investagrams, for the conduct of a trading competition that will run until Nov. 9.

The trading competition seeks to encourage the public to apply their learnings from SEC webinars and training sessions and translate them to real-time trading experience, without the risk of losing their hard-earned money.