FMDA President Seeks Transparent, Digitised Fixed Income Market

The newly elected President, Financial Markets Association of Nigeria (FMDA), Mrs. Anwuli Femi-Pearse, has said one of her priorities will be ensuring that the fixed income market becomes more transparent and digitised for operational efficiency.

Speaking at her swearing-in ceremony during the 32nd annual general meeting(AGM) of FMDA in Lagos, Mrs. Femi-Pearse, who is the Group Head, Treasury, Assets & Liability Management at Sterling Bank, said equipping fixed income market traders with the right skills, ensuring that bonds and T-Bills trading become more transparent are some of her immediate priorities.

According to her, a lot of progress has been made in entrenching transparency and efficient operations in the forex market, adding that same energy that produced positive results in the forex market would be channeled to the fixed income market during her tenure.

“There has been lot of work done in the past to promote efficiency and transparency in forex operations which helped to stabilize the forex market. In the last few years, we have been able to support forex market stabilization by making the market operations more effective and transparent.”

“We want to channel that energy to the fixed income market. We want to ensure that bonds and T-Bills trading are seamless, and more transparent,” she stated.

Mrs. Femi-Pearse noted that she will be working with her team to ensure that trading around treasury operations are digitized for seamless and more efficient service offering.

She said the FMDA under her leadership will make trainings and financial markets knowledge readily available to dealers and traders, to deepen understanding of the market operations.

She disclosed that a lot of financial markets knowledge has been lost in the past years will be restored, and while promoting sanity in treasury and banking operations.

According to her, the FMDA under her leadership will further prioritise training for young dealers, including advocating for ACI Dealing/Settlements Certification to enhance their competence on the job and promote professionalism in the industry.

Mrs. Femi-Pearse thanked the association for entrusting its affairs to her for the next two years and promised to uphold the objectives of the body and work in harmony with other members, member institutions, and regulatory authorities to move the association forward.

Her predecessor, Nadia Zakari, who is the current Head of Markets for Rand Merchant Bank Nigeria, said the AGM was a valuable opportunity to reflect on FMDA’s activities and progress during the financial year ended March 30, 2025 and to engage our stakeholders in shaping the future of the Association.

She said: “Over the past two years, the governing council has taken deliberate steps to advance our strategic objectives, guided by our mandate, we have strengthened the foundations of Professionalism and Ethical Conduct within our while building momentum for long term institutional growth”.

Zakari added that a significant area of progress has been FMDA’s deepening collaboration with regulatory authorities, especially in the area of monetary policy formulation and market development.

Also speaking, the FMDA Executive Secretary, Fisayo Fatade, disclosed that the Secretariat remains a dependable partner in facilitating the work of technical groups and in advancing the overarching interests of members as well as in strengthening industry competencies.

The FMDA is a self-regulatory financial services body established to help develop financial market infrastructure, human capital and promote professional as well as ethical standards in treasury activities in Nigeria.