A Bay Street sign, a symbol of Canada's economic markets and where main financial institutions are located, is seen in Toronto, May 1, 2013.Reuters
There's a new vice-president in charge of market surveillance at the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.
IIROC, which regulates investment dealers in Canada and trading activity in equity and debt markets, has hired Alex Taylor to be its new vice-president of surveillance. This is the group that monitors and analyzes trading activity across Canada's stock markets, looking to detect any unusual activity and identify possible rule violations.
Mr. Taylor joins IIROC from CIBC World Markets, where he managed trading supervision and risk for equity markets, including the trading supervision of the bank's automated trading business.
Mr. Taylor will start in early July. He is replacing Mike Prior, who is retiring at the end of June after a 30-year career in market surveillance.
How stocks are bought and sold has changed a lot during the past three decades. Technology has made trading much faster and spurred the birth of other trading platforms that compete for volume against the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Those tasked with supervising Canada's equity markets have had to keep up with the rapid pace of change – and Mr. Prior has played a key role along the way.
IIROC said in its latest annual report that it is bolstering its oversight capabilities by introducing newer technology for its real-time and post-trade surveillance program. It's also recently started to monitor debt market activity in Canada.