Guyana names securities council board as NCB Capital Markets stresses broker-dealers’ capital role

GEORGETOWN — A capital-markets conference here has drawn attention to fresh governance at the top of Guyana’s securities regulator and to the part broker-dealers play in helping companies raise money.

In September 2024, Natural Resources Minister Dr Ashney Singh steered the appointment of the board of the Guyana Securities Council, the body that oversees broker-dealers in a role likened to that of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Annel Bihari chairs the council; Leslie Glenn, Natasha Vera, Rupnarine Ramara and Donald Dial are among the newly named directors. Organisers expect to hear from Dr Singh again during the event.

Angus Young of NCB Capital Markets, addressing delegates, congratulated the minister and council leadership and argued broker-dealers should not only connect issuers with investors but also widen who can take part in wealth-building as Guyana’s economy accelerates on the back of its energy industry. He said such firms can also help draw regional funds toward what he described as the world’s fastest-growing economy.

NCB Capital Markets said it is backing the conference for a third year as part of regional brokerage work and long-standing ties to Guyana that pre-date the country’s offshore-oil era. The firm cited early unsecured United States-dollar support to the Guyana Sugar Corporation and later infrastructure-linked financings, including work tied to ExxonMobil’s headquarters project and several funding rounds for Guyana’s largest shore-base operator. It also noted a receivables-factoring seminar held in Georgetown and support for an earlier capital-markets forum that predates the current Jamaica Stock Exchange-linked conference series in Guyana.

Young described broker-dealers as the link between businesses that need capital and investors ready to deploy it, whether through initial public offerings, bond issues or private placements. He said they deepen liquidity in secondary trading, give investors a workable way to enter and exit positions, and offer structuring and pricing advice aimed at durable deals rather than one-off transactions.

He acknowledged that in many countries markets skew toward the already wealthy, and said widening participation matters if rapid national growth is not to entrench inequality. Traditional bank credit, he argued, often screens out firms on collateral and credit-history grounds, whereas broker-dealer channels can shoulder different risk profiles and extend financing to a broader set of private-sector borrowers.

Looking ahead, he said NCB Capital Markets wants a deeper local-currency market and more home-grown fundraising across the capital-markets spectrum. He pledged cooperation with the Guyana Securities Council on proportionate rules, simpler processes for issuers, and safeguards that keep investor confidence high; more financial-literacy outreach so ordinary citizens can judge products; and technology, including fintech on mobile phones, to lower practical barriers to investing.

He closed by urging industry peers to build an ecosystem that shares prosperity across the population, not only among a narrow elite.