Financial Markets Conduct (Marex NZ Limited) Exemption Notice 2025

The Financial Markets Conduct (Marex NZ Limited) Exemption Notice 2025 exempts Marex from the requirement under section 310 of the FMC Act to have a licence to operate a financial product market in New Zealand, subject to conditions.  The conditions to the exemption (as set out in the Notice) limit the infrastructure of the facility, the nature of participants, the capacity in which they are participating, and the nature of products traded on the facility.

The key reasons for granting the exemption are that –

• Marex’s financial product market is simple in its format, the type of products that can be traded are limited, and the conditions of the exemption ensure that all participants in the Marex financial product market are wholesale investors.

Accordingly, the following purposes can be substantially achieved without a licence—

• • promoting informed participation of businesses, investors and consumers in the financial markets; and
  • promoting and facilitating the development of fair, efficient, and transparent financial markets; and
  • the additional purposes of providing timely, accurate and understandable information to persons to assist those persons to make decisions relating to financial products or the provision of financial services; and
• Marex must not:
  • hold investor money or property in relation to any financial product market it operates; and
  • operate any clearing and settlement facility on such financial product market. 

As such, it is not necessary to impose requirements in relation to those matters to achieve the purpose of the Act relating to governance arrangements and the management of governance risks; and

• given the statutory purposes described above can be substantially met without Marex being subject to licensing requirements, it is desirable to grant the exemption in order to promote the further statutory purpose of avoiding unnecessary compliance costs; and
• granting the exemption promotes innovation and flexibility in the financial markets, by facilitating the establishment of a new financial product market with appropriate regulatory settings; and
• furthermore, taking into consideration:
  • the matters set out in section 308 of the Act regarding the nature of the activities conducted, the size of the market, the nature of the financial products dealt with, the participants, and the technology used; and
  • the purpose set out in section 229 of the Act to encourage a diversity of financial product markets to take account of the differing needs and objectives of issuers and investors, 

the obligations arising out of the operation of subparts 7 and 8 of Part 5 of the Act would be out of proportion to any benefits licensing Marex may bring in relation to the financial product market permitted by the conditions to the exemption in this notice; and

• the exemption is subject to conditions limiting the infrastructure of the facility, the nature of participants, the capacity in which they are participating, and the range of products traded on any facility that has the benefit of the exemption. The exemption is also subject to conditions requiring Marex to report frequently to the FMA, and is being granted for a 12 month period. As such, the FMA considers the exemption is not broader than reasonably necessary to address the matters that gave rise to the exemption

Download Financial Markets Conduct (Marex NZ Limited) Exemption Notice 2025 [PDF 203KB]