Frank G. Zarb is the chairman and chief executive of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the parent company of the Nasdaq-Amex Market Group.

"If you want the interlinking global liquidity you will have to do a better job of harmonizing standards and enforcing them," Zarb told more than 500 attendees of the Financial Executive International's financial reporting conference Monday. "We must end up with industry standards that facilitate the movement of capital."

The FEI conference was held Monday and Tuesday in New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The FEI announced on Monday that in an effort to "reflect the association's increasingly global outlook and its move towards broadening membership beyond North America" it changed its name from Financial Executives Institute to International. The FEI also unveiled its new logo.

The FEI, founded in 1931, is comprised of 15,000 members who hold policy-making positions such as chief financial officers, treasurers and controllers. Members participate in the activities of 86 chapters, 75 of which are in the U.S.; the remaining 11 are in Canada.

In Zarb's well-received keynote address, he also discussed how technology has, and continues to, shape the landscape of the market, how the Internet has given rise to a whole new community and has enabled society to "reach a new plateau of economic growth."

"You've seen a higher velocity of change than any of our predecessors have seen in the past," said Zarb. "Change has been driven in the business of investment, securities and global accounting."

"What has really changed is that this new world has given access for other people to participate," he added. Zarb said that the electronic stock market has 75 million participants and that Nasdaq's Web site has 70 million hits a day, 20 percent of which are from outside the United States.

Zarb stressed that while "change is good" it comes with a string of challenges attached.

"Institutes and technology markets change slower," he said. "The exchange has changed slower than investors want change."

What can investors do? Zarb suggests getting involved and turn to politicians for help.

"There's a growing community of investors and investors vote," said Zarb.

"Here we have a case to lead the world into a new chapter of economic growth by changing the architecture and the only one who can stop us is us," he added.

-- By Antoinette Alexander

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