Tuesday 14 / January / 2025
Muscat: The Board of Directors of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) has approved amending the capital market legislation and licensing crowdfunding platforms in the Sultanate which are innovative financing instruments and financial techs enabling entrepreneurs, micro, small and medium enterprises to get more appropriate financing mechanisms.
The board emphasised the importance of launching such types of financing products for their significance as financing options for small and medium enterprises in the Sultanate to enhance economic development, creations of jobs and financial inclusion.
CMA’s endeavours to launch and regulate crowdfunding platforms in Oman comes from the wise government’s efforts to provide financing facilities for small and medium enterprises and micro-projects, encouraging youth initiatives and overcoming one of the key challenges facing the projects such as the banking sector’s reluctance to fund such projects due to the related risks and lack of proper guarantees to convince the banks to grant funding facilities beside the impact of the global financial crisis and the COVID- 19 pandemic on the banking sector and the liquidity crunch.
It is worth noting that crowdfunding platforms regulations are in their final stages of preparation and the CMA will take into consideration, in setting out the rules, that they will not be transformed into lending institutions in the conventional sense and will post them for consultation and feedback from the public. CMA intends to license the first crowdfunding platform in Oman before the end of this year.
