Philippines bourse tightens governance

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has released guidelines to help listed companies meet corporate governance standards, reports Business World Online.

PSE officials claim that there will be no sanctions on firms unable to comply, but listed firms will have to disclose to the public the reasons for their failure to adopt good governance practices.

Stephen Lillie, British ambassador to the Philippines, says: “We are helping the exchange to increase good corporate governance that helps create a more attractive environment for companies to come here not just to list on the exchange but for funds to invest in those companies.”

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has released a governance, risk management, and compliance stack for cloud computing, states Information Week.

According to CSA, the suite of cloud security tools, available for free download, is meant to help organisations create public and private clouds that comply with industry standards for accepted governance, risk, and compliance best practices.

Philippe Courtot, chairman and CEO of Qualys, says: "As cloud computing is rapidly changing the way we do business, such a framework is essential for ensuring that our data is secure and that cloud computing vendors adhere to privacy and regulatory requirements."

The World Bank will next year finance a shift in the way savings and credit societies are supervised, to bring them in line with commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies in terms of governance, says Business Daily Africa.

The risk-based supervision system rates a company's strength on its obligations in the market and has been rated as regulators as a pro-active way of preventing loss of public funds when firms go under.

Kenyan Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra) chief executive officer, Carilus Ademba, says: “The new (Web-based) system is similar to what has been used by the Central Bank for a long time and will allow instant access to this information.”