Against the backdrop of recent turmoil in the crypto market and with increasing regulatory scrutiny in this area, understanding the regulators’ approach to investigations and enforcement and how best to avoid the common pitfalls is even more of a priority. In the latest webinar of our financial services crypto series, members of our global financial … Continue Reading
The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin) makes use of its product intervention powers under the European Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR): Under a general administrative act (Allgemeinverfügung) dated 30 September 2022 (link to English convenience translation), BaFin prohibited the marketing, distribution and sale of futures to retail clients domiciled in … Continue Reading
On 13 July 2022, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) published, for the first time, its assessment of bank resolvability. The assessment is based on the information available to the SRB during the drafting phase of 2021 resolution plans up until the end of September 2021. The resolvability assessment and ‘heat-map’ for 2021 shows that banks … Continue Reading
Join our global Financial services regulation team to hear about the developing regulatory approaches and trends in the BNPL sector across the world. Register here … Continue Reading
On 27 June 2022, the European Central Bank issued a statement containing details of the methodology that will be used for exercising supervisory discretion regarding cross-border intra-European Banking Union (EBU) exposures in the global systemically important bank (G-SIB) assessment framework. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel Committee) has completed a targeted review of the … Continue Reading
Germany further broadens the scope of its new legislative regime for electronic securities: On 18 June 2022, the German Regulation on Crypto Fund Units (Verordnung über Kryptofondsanteile – KryptoFAV; link) entered into force. The KryptoFAV introduces the possibility to issue units in common funds (Sondervermögen) via decentralised crypto securities registers which are typically based on distributed ledger … Continue Reading
On 16 June 2022, the European Central Bank (ECB) published a speech by Executive Board member Fabio Panetta entitled ‘Bringing European payments to the next stage: a public-private endeavour’. In his speech Mr Panetta discusses the EU’s retail payments strategy and the introduction of a digital euro. Key points in the speech include: SEPA has … Continue Reading
What have the financial services regulators been doing following the sanctions imposed on Russia? In the latest instalment of our Regulation Around the World series we cover some of the regulatory alerts that financial services regulators have issued in key jurisdictions. Our global updater focussing on the regulatory alerts is accompanied by further analysis in our … Continue Reading
On 20 May 2022, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) announced an enhancement to its approach to the Public Interest Assessment (PIA) policy in resolution planning. The PIA is one of the key policies underpinning the work of the SRB. It examines whether the resolution of a particular EU bank that is failing, or likely to … Continue Reading
On 19 May 2022, the European Central Bank (ECB) updated its supervision blog by posting an update by its chair, Andrea Enria. The posting concerns Brexit and the relocation of business by international banks from London to subsidiaries in the euro area. The blog posting refers to the ECB’s supervisory work in the form of … Continue Reading
On 16 February at 11am – 12pm CET our financial services team in Germany will be holding a webinar exploring the key implications of the end of the Brexit transition period for the payments sector in Germany. In this webinar, presented in English, we will examine what the Brexit trade deal means for the payment … Continue Reading
Germany: As previously reported the German regulator (BaFin) has published its reaction to the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). The German regulator states that the provisions of the TCA will apply to financial services only to a limited extent and repeats that the UK service providers will no longer be able to use the European passports … Continue Reading
After having taken initial steps to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial sector in Germany (see the related publication in our blog), the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin) has taken further relief measures. In order to give supervised entities a better overview of these measures, … Continue Reading
After having stated that it will closely monitor the risk situation caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) with a view to potential reactions, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin) has now taken initial steps to deal with the impact of the pandemic on the financial sector in Germany. Relief for … Continue Reading
Germany has adopted a new regulatory regime for crypto assets in connection with the implementation of the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5). On 29 November 2019, the second chamber of the German parliament (Bundesrat) approved the “Act on the Implementation of the Amendment Directive to the Fourth EU Money Laundering Directive” (Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Änderungsrichtlinie … Continue Reading
The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has issued a guidance notice on dealing with sustainability risks (ESG Guidance Notice). The binding German version was published on 20 December 2019 and later editorially modified on 13 January 2020. Further, BaFin has now also made available an English convenience translation. The German regulator had launched a consultation based on … Continue Reading
The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) will allow payment service providers with seat in Germany to execute card-based payments online without strong customer authentication (SCA) until 31 December 2020. Based on a communication dated 17 October 2019 (link; only available in German), BaFin thus takes into account the relating opinion of the European Banking Authority (EBA) … Continue Reading
The use of IT is of fundamental importance for the finance industry. After having already published two circulars on supervisory IT requirements for financial institutions and insurance undertakings in the past (BAIT and VAIT), the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin) has now also published a circular on the supervisory requirements … Continue Reading
On 5 November 2019, our colleagues in Germany will be holding an event on sustainability through regulation. The event offers an insight into the legal background as well as a panel discussion about sustainability as an opportunity to discuss current developments, innovations and the effects of legal framework conditions. For further information and to register, … Continue Reading
On 24 September 2019, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) published a draft guidance notice on dealing with sustainability risks for consultation (link; only available in German). BaFin expects supervised entities to also take into account environmental risks, social risks and risks arising from corporate governance (commonly referred to as environmental, social and governance – … Continue Reading
We are pleased to be sponsoring The Association for Financial Markets in Europe’s (AFME) 3rd Annual Compliance and Legal Conference, “The future of regulation in a changing world”, which is taking place in Paris from 2-4 October. Our European financial services team will be participating in the event, including speaking on a panel discussion looking … Continue Reading
The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) will allow payment service providers domiciled in Germany to execute credit card payments online without strong customer authentication (SCA) as a temporary measure after 14 September 2019. Pursuant to a press release published on 21 August 2019, BaFin will not object to such transactions for the time being in order … Continue Reading
The German Federal Ministry of Finance (“BMF”) has prepared and circulated to certain interest groups a first draft bill on the national implementation of the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (Directive (EU) 2018/843 – “5MLD”). The draft bill provides for various changes to German regulatory acts such as the German Money Laundering Act (Geldwäschegesetz – “GwG”) … Continue Reading
On 11 December 2018, the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) published its Guidance Notes on the German Money Laundering Act (Auslegungs- und Anwendungshinweise zum Geldwäschegesetz – Guidance Notes). I. Legal basis Pursuant to the German Money Laundering Act (GwG), BaFin has to provide obliged entities belonging to the financial sector with (regularly updated) interpretation and application … Continue Reading
