Latin American Capital Markets

68 GEORG WITTICH, ETHIOPIS TAFARA, AND ROBERT j. PETERSONtions. Developing markets, many of which only recently have established comprehensivesecurities regulatory regimes, should ensure that their regulators have farreachingpowers to cooperate internationally in the interest of ensuring that thecross-border aspects of this new technology do not facilitate circumvention of theirregulatory objectives.The Internet and Capital MarketsCharacteristics of the InternetThe rapid acceptance of Internet and Internet-related technologies reflects thetechnology-driven nature of securities markets (table 3-1). Internet technology lendsitself to securities activity Indeed, the typically "nonphysical" or"dematerialized" natureof securities transactions makes the Internet an appealing medium for financial services,and its breadth, low cost, interactivity, decentralization, and flexibility extend thereach of the financial services industry considerably.Table 3-1 | Growth of the Internet Worldwide, 2000-02RegionWorldAfricaAsia/PacificEuropeMiddle EastUnited States/CanadaLatin AmericaPopulationonline in2000(millions) 34073105113216717Online aspercentageof totalpopulationin 2000 b6.80.43.014.1I.I53.93.2Populationonline in2002(millions) 05444157171518125Online aspercentageof totalpopulationin 2002 d9.00.54.521.62.858.04.9Percentageincreasefrom 2000to 200233.733.349.551.3150.08.447.1a Nua.com November 2000 Internet Survey (http://www.nua.ie), cited in Ashfaq Ishaq, "On the Global DigitalDivide." Finance and Development 38:1 (September) (available at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/ishaq.htm).b Ishaq (2001).c Nua.com February 2002 Internet Survey (available at http://www.nua.com/surveys/how_many_online/index.html).d Population figures are drawn from World Development Indicators database, World Bank, April 2002 (availableat http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/PORpdf).Copyright © by the Inter-American Development Bank. All rights reserved.For more information visit our website: www.iadb.org/pub