Overseas financial service providers could find it easier to do business in the US under a proposed framework suggested by a US Securities Exchange Commission director in the current issue of the Harvard International Law Journal. Ethiopis Tafara, the Director of the Office of International Affairs for the SEC said, instead of being subject to direct SEC supervision and US federal securities regulations and rules, foreign stock exchanges and broker-dealers could apply for an exemption from SEC registration based on their compliance with comparable foreign securities regulations and laws. “Our markets are now interconnected and viewing them in isolation – as we have for so long – is no longer the best approach to protecting our investors and promoting an efficient and transparent US market,” stated Mr Tafara. Mr Tafara co-wrote the article with Robert Peterson, senior counsel for the SEC Office of International Affairs. “Traditional methods that the SEC and its foreign counterparts use to oversee cross-border market activity have lost some of their historical efficiency,” he said. The framework should greatly reduce the transaction costs investors currently pay when investing overseas and allow the current situation of overlapping and duplicative registration and oversight requirements for certain stock exchanges and broker-dealers to end, according to the article.