CySEC participates in World Investor Week 2022

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is participating in World Investor Week 2022, where over 100 countries represented by their Supervisory Authorities will collaborate to educate and protect investors and the general public. The World Investor Week takes place between 3rd and 9th of October and this year will focus on raising awareness about investor resilience and sustainable finance.

It will also highlight the various initiatives undertaken by Supervisory Authorities in these two key areas. This year’s theme complements previous World Investor Week messages, regarding investor protection from fraud and high-risk investments, such as cryptocurrencies. 

Cyprus has been participating in World Investor Week since 2019, through various CySEC initiatives. More specifically, through its participation, CySEC aims to provide information to the investing public regarding the sector’s various inherent risks, while highlighting the importance of education and basic financial knowledge, an area in which Cyprus lags, as recorded by various surveys.

CySEC will actively participate in this year’s event with a series of online activities, aimed at the importance of education and the protection of investors. The Regulatory Authority will post various financial material on its website, including an investor Guide and booklets with important instructions and advice that investors should be aware of before making investment decisions to avoid possible scams, as well as educational articles on the significance of financial literacy. Furthermore, CySEC will disseminate and promote the key messages of the campaign through its official social media channels.

This year’s World Investor Week messages, pertaining to investor resilience and the practices of a smart investor. The messages include ways for investors to weather negative financial shocks with an adequate emergency fund, to understand that risk exists in all investments, to recognize the importance of diversification, especially with respect to protecting investments from losses from a single, unexpected event. Additionally, the investors should plan for life’s unexpected challenges with budgeting strategies to manage risk, reduce the impact of inflation, and avoid high-interest debt, focus on the impact of inflation on purchasing power and uses real rates of return to assess investment performance and conduct research before investing to protect against financial scams.

According to CySEC, in terms of sustainable finance, a smart investor should realize that sustainable finance may be referred to in many different ways, such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, socially responsible investing, and impact investing, should review an investment's disclosure documents to see how it weighs various ESG or sustainable finance factors, should consider whether an investment's stated approach to sustainable finance matches the investor's investment goals, objectives, risk tolerance and preferences and understand that each sustainable finance investment opportunity is unique, and should be evaluated on its own terms.

CySEC Chairman Dr George Theocharides stated that “World Investor Week 2022 offers yet another ideal opportunity to raise awareness among investors, but also the general public, about the various risks involved. Especially since this year messages address two crucial topics that require special attention: investor resilience and sustainable finance. CySEC is adamant that prevention is the most efficient way to minimize the risks that investors are exposed to, and this is where CySEC focuses all of its efforts”, Dr Theocharides added.

He went on to say that “the promotion of financial education is now more crucial than ever, particularly in this unstable economic environment, where the digitization of financial services is being accelerated, and where the general public’s lack of financial knowledge is evident, as highlighted by relevant surveys.”