In the organisation’s fifth monthly newsletter, the SCA announced a “number of strategies” to increase the number of Emiratis working in the financial brokerage sector and to proportionally reduce the number of foreign workers.
The most radical of these measures is to reduce the minimum qualification requirement for Emirati brokers to holding a secondary school certificate – the equivalent of a GCSE – with no relevant experience. A non-Emirati will be expected to hold at least a university degree level qualification and have a minimum of three years’ relevant work experience.
The changes were announced by Abdullah Al-Turifi, chief executive of the SCA who added the regulator is encouraging Emiratis to take up managerial posts like general manager, trading manager and operations manager, by exempting them from “some conditions attached to these jobs”.
Al-Turifi also said the SCA pays for Emiratis to take the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment licence examination.
According to the SCA, of the 303 employees working in the financial brokerage companies of the local markets, 57 are UAE nationals.
The SCA is also planning the “emiratisation” of its own ranks. It said Emiratis currently account for 100% of its leadership posts, 80% of supervisory posts and 70% of its executive posts, while 97% of the new job opportunities in the SCA last year were filled by Emiratis.
