Kuout charts four-year development roadmap for the capital market
Ahmad Maghrabi Kuwait is moving forward with completing its capital market development roadmap, in line with its broader efforts to modernize the economic and financial systems and keep pace with the rapid local and global market transformations. This new phase focuses on upgrading market infrastructure, updating legal and regulatory frameworks, expanding the range of investment tools and products, encouraging high-quality listings, and promoting institutional investment, all in harmony with the objectives of Kuwait Vision 2035.
In the coming period, Kuwait will outline a four-year development roadmap extending through the fiscal years 2030–2031. This roadmap will build upon achievements already made in the capital market system, while simultaneously launching projects aimed at developing financial products, technical and regulatory infrastructure, and services related to securities activities. It also seeks to enhance the benefits of digital transformation and modern technologies, aligning with contemporary trends in global capital markets.
The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is leading this initiative by preparing its fourth strategy for the fiscal years 2027–2028 through 2030–2031. The strategy aims to strengthen the authority’s supervisory and regulatory efficiency and keep pace with the rapid changes occurring in local and international capital markets.
The strategy was developed by a specialized internal team composed of CMA personnel, reflecting the authority’s approach of relying on its institutional capabilities and applying best practices in strategic planning. The launch process began with an internal workshop that emphasized the importance of aligning perspectives and involving all regulatory units within the authority in shaping the strategy’s components.
The CMA has already made significant progress in preparing the fourth strategy, having completed three stages of the development process. The first stage involved a comprehensive assessment of the current situation, including a broad internal and external environmental scan. This was aimed at analyzing the authority’s current status using advanced strategic tools and methodologies, as well as identifying future development opportunities. Notably, this stage involved more than 80 local and international entities, categorized into four main groups of stakeholders, reflecting the extensive engagement during the current situation assessment phase.
In the second stage, the authority formulated strategic directions, pillars, and priorities. These reflect the aspirations of the CMA and securities market participants, while aligning with the authority’s legal roles, Kuwait Vision 2035, and the principles and standards of relevant international organizations.
The third stage involved translating strategic directions into actionable implementation plans. It also included preparing technical and regulatory enablement plans, training programs, and aligning the organizational structure, mandates, and processes to ensure readiness for implementation immediately upon the conclusion of the current strategy.
The strategic objectives guiding the CMA’s development path indicate that capital market development encompasses upgrading the market system, modernizing legal and regulatory frameworks in line with contemporary capital market trends, encouraging high-quality listings in the financial market, and promoting institutional investment.
Additionally, the objectives include enhancing local, regional, and international cooperation; raising awareness and knowledge regarding investment, legal matters, and information security across all segments of society; and improving organizational and operational efficiency and effectiveness.
The strategic path also extends to developing the capabilities and resources of the human workforce and improving the internal work environment, maximizing the utilization of the financial body’s capabilities and resources in the most optimal manner, and leveraging the potential of digital transformation and modern technologies in the body’s operations. Thus, the fourth strategy is not limited to formulating directions for the coming years; it is linked to an implementation path that combines the development of the market system, its products and services, and its infrastructure, with the development of the body’s technical, organizational, and human capabilities. The upcoming strategy is built on a foundation of market development projects in which the body has already advanced through several stages, most notably the project to qualify new financial products. In this regard, the body, in cooperation with relevant authorities, prepared drafts of the necessary legislation for bonds, sukuk, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), incorporating feedback from entities that participated in the opinion survey, while work continued to approve the final drafts for these investment and financing instruments.
The body includes these instruments within the “Qualification of New Financial Products” project as part of the Capital Market System Development Program. At this stage, available data does not specify launch deadlines for these instruments or associated quantitative targets. On the technical front, the body completed the market infrastructure entities system—Securities Settlement Facility (SSF), Central Securities Depository (CSD), and Central Counterparty (CCP)—under the Capital Market System Development Program on July 13, 2025, meeting all relevant key performance indicators.
Prior to the launch of the second part of the third phase of the Market System Development Program, 33 extensive market tests were conducted between May 31, 2022, and March 16, 2025, along with additional technical tests to ensure the readiness of technical systems among concerned parties. The development efforts included coordination with the Central Bank of Kuwait to finalize the cash settlement of securities trades through settlement banks and the central bank’s system, as well as the approval of the necessary regulatory rules and documents for the Kuwait Clearing Company, the Kuwait Central Depository Company, and the corporate governance rules of the Kuwait Clearing Company.
Furthermore, the third phase saw the issuance of the first license for the Kuwait Clearing Company to provide the Central Counterparty (CCP) clearing agency service, alongside regularizing the status of the Kuwait Clearing Company and its subsidiaries within the infrastructure entities qualification activities.
Development also extended to securities service providers, where the body established licensing conditions, controls, and standards for conducting the activity of a registered qualified securities broker on the Securities Exchange. It also reviewed license applications submitted by registered brokers in accordance with the approved mechanism. In another project, the body conducted eight extensive market tests covering sub-accounts held by persons licensed to conduct the activity of investment portfolio manager, with the participation of most investment portfolio managers and all relevant parties. These tests led to aligning the automated monitoring system with changes to sub-accounts, prior to launching the project in phases between July and September 2025.
Digital transformation constitutes one of the components of the body’s strategic framework, as “leveraging and utilizing the potential of digital transformation and modern technologies in the body’s operations” falls under the objectives of institutional empowerment. At the same time, the body has been reviewing a strategy to evaluate the “Digital Transformation Strategy” in order to identify changes and updates required in light of the state’s directions regarding keeping pace with the pace of global technological development and its most prominent related trends.
The fourth strategy thus integrates the development of the market system, the modernization of legislative and regulatory frameworks, the stimulation of quality listings and the encouragement of institutional investment, the completion of financial product and infrastructure development, alongside technological and regulatory empowerment, human capacity building, and digital transformation. Collectively, these pillars outline the contours of the next phase in the development of the Kuwaiti capital market through 2030–2031.
