Jean-Paul Servais is the Chairman of the board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). He was elected in October 2022 and re-elected in May 2024 for another term of 2 years. IOSCO is the membership organization composed of the world’s financial markets regulators involved in the supervision of 95 % of the financial sector at international level. He is also the Chairman of the IOSCO European Regional Committee.
Jean-Paul Servais is the first Belgian to be elected Chairman of IOSCO. His election was partly in recognition of his efforts and the quality of his work during the six years in which he was already vice-chairman of IOSCO. As IOSCO Chairman, he helped bring about major international breakthroughs in the regulation of crypto currencies and in introducing reporting standards on sustainability.
Between 2017 and 2023, Mr. Servais chaired the IFRS Foundation Monitoring Board, which consists of global financial regulators and provides oversight to the IFRS Foundation. In parallel, he was the co-chair of the Monitoring Group (2021-2023), a group of international financial institutions and regulatory bodies committed to advancing the public interest in areas related to international audit standard setting and audit quality. Within IOSCO, Jean-Paul also led the SPAC network, which successfully delivered a final report in May 2023.
Besides his international responsibilities, Mr Servais is the Chairman of the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA). In this capacity, he is a board member of other international supervisory bodies for the financial sector such as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB). Besides, he sits on a number of supervisory colleges that coordinate the (cross-border) supervision of financial institutions and infrastructures.
Through these experiences Jean-Paul has accrued a unique blend of supervisory expertise and regulatory acumen in the field of international financial services. Jean-Paul is known for his commitment towards investor protection. Beyond his thorough understanding on the functioning of traditional financial services and markets, Jean-Paul is an engaged and influential figure on sustainable finance and digital regulatory agendas.
Also based on his experiences as a supervisor and from his passion for education, Jean-Paul Servais had become imbued with the importance of financial education. He therefore requested and obtained from the Belgian legislator the power for the FSMA to contribute to the financial education of the population. Under his impetus, the FSMA launched in 2013 the now very successful Wikifin financial education programme. And in 2020, the Wikifin Lab opened in Brussels. This unique centre for financial education has since welcomed thousands of Belgian students and has become a reference at international level.
Jean-Paul teaches at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, University of Brussels), where he is part-time professor in International Business Law and in the specialised Master in Tax Law. He is author or co-author of more than 500 contributions, mostly engaging on European and international systems of financial supervision and regulation issues.
