House Chair, the Financial Markets Bill replaces the Securities Services Act of 2004. Now just to sketch the picture, the previous Act consolidated the South African regulatory framework related to capital markets and aligned the regulation and supervision of South African financial markets with the then prevailing international developments and regulatory standards.
As we know, local and international developments and the recent global financial crisis and implementation challenges required a review of the regulatory approach and the framework, and that is provided for in this Bill. This, clearly, the ACDP supports. This Bill aims to increase confidence in the South African financial markets by requiring that securities services be provided in a fair, efficient and transparent manner. Hopefully, we will not have these Ponzi schemes when this Bill is further implemented and the capacity of the FSB is improved.
This will contribute to the maintenance of a stable financial market environment, which we clearly support, and it is a great achievement that we are rated number one in the regulatory area internationally. The ACDP particularly welcomes the stringent measures to prevent market abuse by closing loopholes that currently exist. Now, the provisions against insider trading have been strengthened to include an offence of dealing for an insider, where the person dealing is not necessarily that insider trading.
We also welcome the substantial increase in the maximum penalties that can be imposed, both administratively and by the courts, following our intervention in this regard, as well as the provisions for compensation where that should be paid to victims. We trust that these provisions will deal decisively with the various forms of market abuse that do occur. The ACDP will support this Bill. Thank you. [Applause.]