On 12 February 2020, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a final report on issues, risks and regulatory considerations relating to crypto-asset trading platforms (CTPs). The key considerations relate to: access to CTPs; safekeeping of participant assets, including custody arrangements; identification and management of conflicts of interest; transparency of operations; market integrity, including … Continue Reading
Every month we provide the Global Blockchain Business Council’s Post-Trade Distributed Ledger group with a global regulatory FinTech updater, the latest version of which can be found here. Post Trade Distributed Ledger (PTDL) Group is composed of over 40 prominent market infrastructure stakeholders whose shared vision of the use of distributed ledger technology has brought … Continue Reading
On 21 January 2020, the Bank of England (BoE) announced that it has created a group of international central banks to share experiences as they assess the potential cases for central bank digital currencies. The group will also closely coordinate with the Financial Stability Board and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures. The group … Continue Reading
On 13 January 2020, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a report on Big Data and Advanced Analytics (BD&AA) in the banking sector. The reports aims to share knowledge on the current use of BD&AA by providing a background on this area, alongside key observations and outlining the key pillars and elements of trust that … Continue Reading
Consob’s final report on initial coin offers (ICOs) and crypto-assets exchanges On 2 January 2020, following the publication of a discussion document on 19 March 2019 (on which you can find our previous article here), Consob (the Italian regulator supervising financial markets and listed companies) released its final report on initial coin offerings (ICOs) and … Continue Reading
On 19 December 2019, the European Commission (Commission) published an inception impact assessment on a proposal for a regulation on digital operational resilience for the financial services sector. The impact assessment has been published alongside a public consultation requesting feedback on how the financial services sector can be improved to be more secure and resilient … Continue Reading
On 19 December 2019, the European Commission (Commission) launched a public consultation on the future EU framework for markets in crypto-assets. Launched in parallel with a public consultation on a digital operational resilience framework for financial services, both consultations are initial steps towards the implementation of the new Commission’s President, Ursula von der Leyen, objective … Continue Reading
On 19 December 2019, the European Commission (Commission) launched a public consultation on a digital operational resilience framework for financial services. The consultation, which was published in parallel with a separate consultation on crypto assets, comes as the Commission is working towards a new Digital Finance Strategy. The aim of the strategy would be to … Continue Reading
On 16 December 2019, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a consultation paper with proposed guidance addressing potential conflicts of interest and associated conduct risks that stem from market intermediaries in the debt capital raising process. The proposed guidance consists of eight measures relating to the pricing of debt securities and related risk … Continue Reading
On 17 December 2019, the European Central Bank (ECB) published its latest in focus paper which explores anonymity in central bank digital currencies. The paper discusses a proof of concept for anonymity in digital cash (referred to as “central bank digital currency”) that has been developed by the European System of Central Banks. The main … Continue Reading
On 12 December 2019, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel Committee) published a discussion paper seeking views on a range of issues related to the prudential regulatory treatment of crypto-assets. The responses to the discussion paper will inform the Basel Committee’s development of a prudential treatment for crypto-assets at large, including for crypto-assets that … Continue Reading
On 12 December 2019, the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) published a report on wholesale digital tokens, focussing on their potential for use as a means of settling wholesale transactions. Wholesale transactions are typically settled by updating account balances recorded on a centralised register such as a settlement institution’s ledger. But the development … Continue Reading
On 5 December 2019, the European Commission (Commission) published a speech by Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, following the final Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) meeting under the Finnish Presidency. Among other things, ECOFIN announced the endorsement of a joint statement with the Commission on stablecoins … Continue Reading
On 6 November 2019, the Council of the EU released a note (13571/19) from its Presidency addressed to it, which annexes a joint statement of the Council and the European Commission (Commission) on stablecoins. In particular, the joint statement provides that “the Council and the Commission state that no global stablecoin arrangement should begin operation … Continue Reading
On 4 November 2019, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) released a statement on a study of stablecoin initiatives with a potential global reach (Global Stablecoins). IOSCO’s FinTech Network (the Network), which is chaired by the FCA and was established in May 2018 to facilitate exchanges among IOSCO members on their experiences relating to … Continue Reading
On 30 October 2019, the Bank for International Settlements published a speech given by Burkhard Baltz, Deutsche Bundesbank Executive Board Member, entitled “Curtain up for the future of payments: from Bigtechs and Fintechs to smartphones”. In his speech, Mr Baltz discusses the three aspects that he believes are key to the digitalisation of the payments … Continue Reading
On 31 October 2019, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a press release announcing it has published further technical details for the reporting of Securities Financing Transactions (SFTs) as required under the SFT Regulation (SFTR) The materials include the validation rules applicable to SFTR reports together with the XML schemas that reporting entities … Continue Reading
On 18 October 2019, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published an issues note on the regulatory issues concerning stablecoins. The note was delivered to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors ahead of their meeting in Washington D.C. The FSB warns that recent developments in the private sector involving the launch of stablecoin-type arrangements for … Continue Reading
On 13 October 2019, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published a letter from Randal Quarles, FSB Chair, to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. The letter highlights three areas of the FSB’s work: ensuring resilience in the face of new risks. The outlook for global growth has started to weaken and become more uncertain. … Continue Reading
On 16 September 2019 the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a working paper by its Monetary and Economic Department on Embedded supervision: how to build regulation into blockchain finance. The working paper suggests that asset tokenisation and the use of the underlying distributed ledger technology (DLT) in finance provides new avenues for the supervision … Continue Reading
On 28 August 2019, the European Commission (the Commission) published an answer given by Valdis Dombrovskis (Vice-President European Commission, Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) concerning cryptoassets. In its response, the Commission refers to an announcement made in its 2018 Action Plan on FinTech (see previous blog post here) that it is looking … Continue Reading
On 20 August 2019, the European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Banking Authority (together the European Supervisory Authorities) published a letter in response to an earlier letter from Valdis Dombrovskis (Vice-President European Commission, Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) concerning crypto-assets, including so-called ‘stablecoins’. The letter outlines some of the European … Continue Reading
On 26 July 2019, the European Central Bank (ECB) published a letter from its president, Mario Draghi, to Markus Ferber MEP. In the letter Mr Draghi discusses how the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) is closely monitoring innovation in the financial sector, including stablecoin projects such as Facebook’s ‘Libra’. The ESCB also contributes to … Continue Reading
On 18 July 2019, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a report illustrating the findings of an analysis on issues relating to access to the market for FinTech firms. The analysis focused on the monitoring of national developments on the regulatory perimeter; the national regulatory status of FinTech firms; and the approaches followed by Member … Continue Reading
