Global Regulator & Central Bank News Roundup

At its 16th meeting, the Joint Committee on Climate Change (JC3), co-chaired by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and Malaysia's Securities Commission (SC), reviewed progress and set strategic priorities for 2026, reaffirming a focus on mobilising finance for impactful climate and nature-positive projects and strengthening Malaysia’s climate and sustainable finance ecosystem. Key deliverables include developing the Malaysia Taxonomy as a unified national classification framework aligned with the ASEAN Taxonomy, with a call for feedback on its design and scope due at the end of February 2026 to gather views on adoption and implementation. JC3 also reviewed the JC3 Climate Finance Innovation Lab (CFIL), which had onboarded 30 projects as at January 2026 with total funding needs exceeding MYR4 billion, and will prioritise project readiness and viability support and stronger public-private-philanthropic partnerships. In parallel, development has commenced on National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF) for Financial Institutions Guidance to facilitate NSRF adoption in line with International Sustainability Standard Board requirements, building on illustrative sustainability reports for the plantation and construction sectors issued by the Advisory Committee on Sustainability Reporting to support application of IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 disclosure requirements. Looking ahead, JC3’s emerging priorities include exploring risk-sharing mechanisms for transition and adaptation projects, identifying policy levers to support climate finance, developing finance solutions for carbon credit projects, integrating nature-related financial risks into regulations and initiatives, and improving access to climate- and nature-related data. JC3 will also hold its biennial Journey to Zero Regional Conference on 28 and 29 September 2026 at Sasana Kijang, with further details to be announced.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has published a Fintech Promotion Blueprint setting out promotional initiatives to accelerate the implementation of more sophisticated fintech across Hong Kong’s financial services industry under its Fintech 2030 strategy. The programme prioritises Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Ledger Technology and High-Performance Computing, underpinned by Data Excellence and Cyber Resilience, and is organised around ecosystem collaboration, technological advancement, and talent and outreach. The blueprint builds on the HKMA’s earlier Fintech Promotion Roadmap and cites its 2025 Tech Maturity Stock-take, which found 95% of surveyed banks, including all retail banks, have adopted fintech to enable end-to-end digitalisation. It reports adoption of Artificial Intelligence increased from 59% in 2022 to 75% in 2025, and Distributed Ledger Technology rose from 30% to 45%, alongside a 23% adoption rate for High-Performance Computing and 7% for quantum computing. Key constraints identified include high implementation cost (75%), risks associated with new technologies (73%), integration with existing systems (71%), data privacy and cybersecurity concerns (61%), and skilled talent and evolving regulatory landscape (both 59%). Planned initiatives include an industry-led Fintech Cybersecurity Baseline for fintech solution providers to streamline banks’ due diligence, a Hong Kong A.I. Fintech Map intended as a public directory of A.I. and Generative A.I. firms and integration with Fintech Connect, a revamp of Fintech Connect including potential A.I.-driven matching, a Quantum Preparedness Index starting with a baseline assessment and transition roadmap for post-quantum cryptography adoption, and a New Risk Data Strategy linked to expanding the scope of the Granular Data Reporting initiative, alongside publications, showcase workshops, digital content, competitions, training and knowledge repositories.

The South Korea Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced that the Korea Exchange (KRX) will begin operating an AI-driven stock market monitoring system from 3 February 2026 to strengthen early detection and response to market manipulation and other unfair trading activities. The system is intended to help authorities verify and act on large volumes of potentially market-moving information circulating online. Developed as a follow-up to the joint comprehensive measures announced by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the KRX in July 2025, the tool was trained on online posts, reported spam text messages, YouTube videos and stock price movement data for items previously identified as potential targets of unfair transactions. Using objective indicators learned from this training, it monitors cyber information trends, scores individual stocks and automatically flags items with a high probability of unfair trading, supporting decisions on whether suspicious trading is occurring and enabling more in-depth examinations where needed. The FSC noted that automated detection should improve the efficiency of sorting high-risk stocks, expand real-time monitoring coverage and reduce the time required for initial analysis.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced the appointment of Sarah Court as the agency’s incoming Chair. Court, currently ASIC’s Deputy Chair, was credited with helping deliver the agency’s structural transformation and a strengthened enforcement posture. Longo said he will support Court, the Commission and staff over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition ahead of her 1 June 2026 commencement.

New Zealand's Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has published findings from its operational resilience thematic survey of peer-to-peer lending service providers, setting out assessed areas of strength, gaps and practical recommendations across governance, outsourcing, incident management, business continuity planning, technology and information security, and incident notification. The voluntary survey ran between 9 and 30 September 2025 and used a five-level maturity scale across the assessed components, with results based on self-reported information that was not independently verified. All respondents indicated they have sufficient financial resources to invest in operational resilience and technology systems, with investment ranging from NZD 10,000 to NZD 500,000 (less than 1% to more than 10% of annual revenue), and all had at least one board member with operational resilience expertise, although only a minority provide regular annual board training. Governance scores ranged from 3.5 to 4.7 out of 5; outsourcing from 2.9 to 4.2 out of 5, reflecting reliance on external service providers and variation in the robustness of due diligence, monitoring and contractual provisions for continuity and termination. All respondents reported documented business continuity plans but post-incident reviews and testing practices were inconsistent, contributing to incident management and business continuity plan scores of 3.4 to 4.5 out of 5. Most entities relied on customised technology systems, with some still dependent on legacy systems, and adoption of recognised information security frameworks such as NIST or ISO/IEC 27001 was limited to one entity; technology and information security scores ranged from 3.1 to 4.0 out of 5. Incident notification scores ranged from 2.5 to 4.7 out of 5, with all respondents using materiality criteria but with differing effectiveness and levels of testing of identification and escalation processes. The report encourages peer-to-peer lenders to prioritise improvements in areas such as ongoing board and staff development, service provider due diligence and performance monitoring, business continuity planning.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) published a thematic review of risk management practices at nine deposit takers, highlighting good practices and common shortcomings and setting out sector-wide recommendations to support stronger, forward-looking risk management. Although practices were generally proportionate to size and complexity, the review identifies improvement actions for all participants to better meet supervisory expectations and keep frameworks fit for purpose. Key gaps included the absence of independent, regular and comprehensive reviews of risk management frameworks as a whole, alongside weaknesses in monitoring and reporting non-financial risks and in identifying emerging and cross-cutting risks. Smaller entities were found to need broader improvements, particularly in setting and using risk appetite, internal audit, and risk monitoring and reporting, while governance themes included varying Chief Risk Officer capability and limited evidence that conflicts of interest from dual-hatting were actively assessed; non-bank deposit takers also generally lacked internal audit and had not fully embedded the three lines model, with resource constraints contributing to blurred separation between first and second lines. Participating entities are expected to develop action plans to address identified weaknesses, and all deposit takers are expected to self-assess against the report’s expectations and recommendations and be prepared to discuss any gaps and remediation plans with supervisors.

Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) has moved from announcing to operationalising its post-late-January response under interim governance, with Friderica Widyasari Dewi and Hasan Fawzi formally appointed as acting board members to maintain continuity after the leadership resignations, while signalling it will base its work at the Indonesia Stock Exchange to drive delivery of measures addressing MSCI’s concerns with an aim to complete them before May 2026. The reform track is now framed as a Capital Market Integrity Reform Task Force, built around an eight-point package, led by a staged increase in minimum free float to 15% with immediate application for new IPOs and transition time for existing issuers, alongside stronger ownership transparency through ultimate beneficial owner and shareholder-affiliation disclosure, a lowered public disclosure threshold to above 1%, and more granular investor-type ownership data for publication, backed by demutualisation, tighter enforcement against market abuses and issuer-governance measures. OJK has begun socialising implementation mechanics with issuers through the Indonesian Issuers Association, which has endorsed a phased approach, with OJK and the exchange preparing an indicative framework for exchange rules and an issuer helpdesk to support transition. Meanwhile, Moody’s reaffirmation of Indonesia at Baa2 alongside a shift to a negative outlook has further sharpened the confidence backdrop.

The European Central Bank (ECB) published its euro area bank lending survey for the fourth quarter of 2025, showing an unexpected net tightening of credit standards for loans or credit lines to enterprises (7%), alongside a small net easing for housing loans (-2%) and a further tightening for consumer credit (6%). Loan demand increased slightly for firms (3%) and rose further for housing loans (9%), while demand for consumer credit declined slightly (-2%). Overall terms and conditions tightened for loans to firms and consumer credit and eased for housing loans. Tighter corporate credit standards were mainly driven by higher perceived risks to the economic outlook and lower bank risk tolerance, with Germany and France reporting tighter standards while Spain and Italy reported no change. Corporate loan demand was supported by inventories and working capital needs and other financing needs such as debt refinancing and mergers and acquisitions, while fixed investment made an overall neutral contribution. Rejection rates increased for corporate loans and consumer credit and were unchanged for housing loans. Banks reported slightly worse access to retail funding and money markets and improved access to debt securities funding and securitisation, and they indicated that new regulatory and supervisory actions led to higher capital and liquid asset holdings and lower risk-weighted assets, with a net tightening impact on credit standards across all loan categories. Trade policy changes and related uncertainty were also cited as contributing to tighter corporate credit standards and dampening corporate loan demand. For the first quarter of 2026, banks expect a further net tightening of credit standards for firms (6%), housing loans (3%) and consumer credit (9%), with loan demand expected to rise for firms (6%) and increase slightly for housing loans (3%) and consumer credit (2%). Funding access is expected to remain broadly unchanged, with a slight easing for debt securities funding, while banks anticipate regulatory and supervisory actions will continue to exert a tightening effect on credit standards during 2026.

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority has opened a public consultation and published an assessment of whether Solvency II should more explicitly recognise adaptation measures in the prudential treatment of natural catastrophe insurance. The exercise examines how risk-reducing measures at property and area level interact with capital requirements, including whether the standard formula could create disincentives where adaptation increases insured values. The paper focuses on the standard formula natural catastrophe catastrophe module and the calibration of parameters including country factors, zonal relativities and correlations, covering exposures in the European Economic Area as well as the United Kingdom and Switzerland and concentrating on windstorm, earthquake and flood. It sets out how adaptation can be reflected in catastrophe models through hazard modification (notably for flood via defences and water management) and through exposure descriptors and vulnerability functions (notably for micro measures such as resilience and resistance features), while highlighting persistent data constraints and the averaging inherent in industry exposure databases used for standard formula calibration. Options explored include building adaptation explicitly into regular parameter reassessments, allowing undertaking-specific parameters, adding new standard formula parameters to reflect adaptation, and relying on internal or partial internal models; model runs cited suggest earthquake retrofit and higher-code assumptions could reduce country factors by up to 80% for Greece, Cyprus and Italy, while assumed property-level flood measures reduced country factors by 5% to 20% for Germany, Hungary and Poland.

The Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) has published its Single Programming Document for 2026–2028, setting out strategic priorities, planned outputs and resourcing as it moves from start-up to delivering its EU anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism mandate. The plan frames the build-out of policy standards, risk analysis and data infrastructure, and the operational steps needed to begin direct supervision of 40 EU credit and financial institutions from 2028. Key workstreams include completing the EU AML/CFT Single Rulebook through regulatory technical standards, implementing technical standards and guidelines, alongside development of a common supervisory methodology and an enforcement framework. The document also sets a digital and data agenda centred on an EU-wide AML/CFT central database and analytics capabilities, the transfer and modernisation of EuReCA and FIU.net, and an FIU pillar covering joint analyses, peer reviews, mediation and working arrangements with bodies including the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Europol, Eurojust and the European Anti-Fraud Office. Indirect supervision and non-financial sector oversight are planned through convergence reviews, supervisory college engagement and capacity-building, with targeted work on crypto-asset service providers. Operational milestones and resource assumptions include financial autonomy from 1 January 2026, a planned headcount of 233 staff in 2026 rising to 432 by the end of 2027, and a budget rising from EUR 43.060.950 in 2026 to EUR 96.041.000 in 2028.

The European Commission published a joint statement by Commissioners Várhelyi and Albuquerque reaffirming its work on the “right to be forgotten” for cancer patients in access to financial services and signalling plans to issue guidance to financial undertakings in 2026. It pointed to Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan as a catalyst for dialogue between cancer organisations, the medical community and the insurance sector on a code of conduct for fair access to financial services. The statement also highlighted that the 2023 Consumer Credit Directive introduced the first EU legislative protection in this area by prohibiting the use of a person’s cancer history for insurance policies related to consumer credit agreements after a maximum period calculated from the end of medical treatment, while noting it will consider the issue’s complexity and the concerns of both patients and the insurance community. Member States will begin applying the Consumer Credit Directive provision from 20 November 2026, and the Commission intends to present guidance in 2026 leveraging the ongoing code of conduct work.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has published Discussion Paper 1/26 setting out its latest thinking on banking data collections under the Future Banking Data (FBD) programme and inviting views on a programme of pragmatic, incremental reforms intended to reduce firms’ reporting costs while improving the relevance, quality and timeliness of data. The paper explains how the PRA uses regulatory and firm-supplied data across supervision, crisis response, cross-sectional analysis, and policy and research, while recognising that data provision can represent a substantial cost for firms. It flags opportunities to streamline and modernise the data estate, including reviewing what data are collected, from which firms and at what frequencies; improving clarity and navigability of reporting instructions; evaluating legacy collection processes; and addressing gaps around new and emerging risks. The PRA proposes four guiding principles for FBD, including objectives-driven collections, collecting data “once and well”, making it easier for firms to supply high-quality data, and ensuring collections remain fit for purpose over time, while highlighting key trade-offs such as timeliness versus comparability, standardisation versus flexibility, aggregate versus granular reporting, and international alignment versus UK tailoring; the scope covers PRA-authorised UK banks, building societies and PRA-designated UK investment firms (and relevant group entities) but excludes credit unions. Responses are requested by Tuesday 5 May 2026, after which the PRA plans to work with firms to develop a roadmap for reforms. Possible areas for future phases include extending template deletions beyond those already implemented (including the deletions in PS27/25), refining cost-benefit models for reporting, simplifying the structure of PRA reporting rules, and developing a clearer instruction and data dictionary approach.

The French Financial Markets Authority (AFM) published a study on how artificial intelligence is used by French financial market participants, based on questionnaires to supervised financial entities, listed companies, and law and audit firms, with 100 responses. It reports very high adoption among providers of financial services, with 90% using AI or planning to do so within the next 12 months. Generative AI is the most used technology, and the dominant pattern is deployment for internal productivity rather than for client-facing activity. More than half of supervised respondents (54%) report use cases already in production, and 83% of the 106 detailed use cases are internal, while 17% relate to client interaction and 1% directly supports the provision of investment services. The study highlights reliance on third-party, off-the-shelf solutions, particularly for generative AI, and a concentration of external providers among a small number of non-European firms, with hybrid hosting the most common approach. Respondents cite benefits centred on processing large data volumes, cost reduction and process improvement, while the main risks relate to data governance and protection, excessive technological dependence and shortages of internal AI expertise. 72% of respondents report having AI-specific governance policies, human-in-the-loop oversight is widely embedded, and around half report fully blocking access to publicly available large language models that have not been acquired, developed or adapted by the firm.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) issued a joint warning to claims management companies and law firms handling motor finance commission claims to stop consumers being represented multiple times for the same claim and to avoid excessive termination fees. The Financial Conduct Authority also wrote to motor finance lenders on steps to identify the sole acting representative so complaints are not delayed. Representatives are expected to carry out robust onboarding checks to confirm whether a client is already represented, confirm authority for each individual claim, and ensure advertising does not mislead consumers into signing additional agreements. Where a client terminates or switches representative, any fee must be fair, reasonable and proportionate to work done, with Financial Conduct Authority-regulated claims management companies required to provide fair value under the Consumer Duty and Solicitors Regulation Authority-regulated firms able to bill only in line with agreed terms that were clearly stated up-front. The Financial Conduct Authority’s lender letter noted the pause on handling motor finance commission complaints is due to end in May 2026 and final rules for a proposed Motor Finance Consumer Redress scheme are due by the end of March 2026. Lenders were advised to contact all representatives linked to a complaint to establish the single representative, copy the customer, provide sufficient information to resolve representation status, close duplicate complaints once confirmed, and ask the customer how to proceed if a sole representative cannot be identified.

Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) adopted on first reading a draft regulation setting the procedural and operational framework for licensing and conducting business by issuers of asset-backed tokens and crypto-asset service providers, including related governance, disclosure and digital operational resilience processes. The draft sets out how licence applications and notifications are to be submitted, the information and supporting documents required, and ongoing notification obligations when internal rules, policies or governing bodies change. It includes fit-and-proper documentation expectations for management bodies and qualifying shareholders, organisational requirements covering staffing for compliance and risk management, minimum annual training for staff, and criteria for individuals providing crypto-asset advice. For outsourcing of critical or important operational functions, providers would have to notify the vice-chair at least 30 calendar days before contracting, with additional conditions for sub-outsourcing. Separate procedures address permissions to use internal penetration testers and the issuance of certificates for performed tests.

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) published a speech by Steven Maijoor arguing that Europe’s growing reliance on a small number of IT service providers, particularly cloud hyperscalers, is an often-unseen fault line running underneath the financial system. Drawing on a joint De Nederlandsche Bank and Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) report, he called for “vault lines” in the form of stronger structures and stable partnerships to reduce digital dependence and improve resilience. The speech highlighted concentration and systemic risks from widespread reliance on the same few providers, including the potential for immediate disruption if a hyperscaler fails, suffers a cyber-attack, or is compelled by its government to halt services for certain customers. In the near term, Maijoor urged financial institutions to develop and rehearse threat scenarios, especially hybrid physical and digital attacks and sanctions that force key suppliers to suspend services, and to test end-to-end chains of systems with main suppliers to understand how disruptions could spread. Practical mitigants cited included redesigning applications for portability using open standards and container technologies, broadening vendor bases through multi-vendor strategies, strengthening control over data, and increasingly retaining institutions’ own encryption keys. Looking longer term, he set out reducing reliance on non-European providers as the goal, noting that legislation such as the European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act provides a starting point but does not remove vulnerabilities linked to geopolitics and the location and jurisdiction of critical data. Proposed steps included deeper collaboration with European IT providers through aligned specifications, coordinated testing and purchase guarantees, joined testing across subcontractor chains, more European capital for innovative technology firms via a stronger savings and investment union, and, where necessary, more enforceable oversight and clearer expectations on geopolitical risk and data location, including consideration of a cross-sector European cloud supervisor.

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) has published its supervisory priorities for 2026. Priorities concentrate on financial stability and resilience to distribution, financial crime prevention and detection, as well as consumer protection . Planned supervisory work includes reviews of governance and risk management, including banks’ concentrations and handling of high-risk lending, and insurers’ use and management of extensive complex financial instruments. The authority will maintain close dialogue with the fund sector to ensure all funds introduce liquidity management tools and will pay closer attention to smaller firms’ business models and resilience, including analysis of how disruptions could arise and spread through increasing interconnectedness. Climate-related sustainability risks will be monitored for potential impacts on the stability of the financial system. Operational resilience and security supervision will continue, with analysis of data reported under the Digital Operational Resilience Act to identify risks and support compliance assessments, alongside ongoing mapping of security-sensitive activities in the financial sector. Financial crime work will be intensified across anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and fraud, including development of AI and advanced analytics to detect risk patterns and expanded cooperation and information-sharing with crime prevention and law enforcement agencies. Consumer-focused priorities cover unsound lending, debt collection and credit assessments, new regulations and general guidance intended to clarify requirements for lenders linked to implementation of the new Consumer Credit Directive, and reviews of compliance with advice and distribution rules by investment firms and insurance intermediaries. Additional work includes targeting greenwashing, reviewing funds with sustainability-related names, deeper analysis of individual occupational pension transfers and customer investment choices, mapping distribution of complex savings products, further focus on insurance products that do not provide sufficient value for money, and attention to payment-services fraud and investment scams.

Spain's National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has published a report on the state of digital assets and presented it at the 'One year of MiCA implementation' event at the Museo Reina Sofía auditorium, concluding that the sector is moving into a more mature phase marked by the progressive integration of digital assets into traditional financial markets. The working paper surveys the current digital-asset ecosystem and its relevance for the financial system, covering centralised exchanges, stablecoins, decentralised finance and the use of distributed ledger technology in securities markets. The analysis highlights the rapid expansion of global crypto-asset markets in 2024 and 2025 and the growing role of stablecoins as the liquidity infrastructure for crypto trading, while flagging risks linked to fraud, price volatility and misinformation for retail investors and the potential for shock transmission as links with traditional finance deepen. Regulatory approaches are presented as heterogeneous across jurisdictions; for the European Union, the report sets out how the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation MiCA applies to issuers and crypto-asset service providers and notes that, in Spain, supervision is split between the Bank of Spain for e-money tokens and asset-referenced tokens and the CNMV for other crypto-assets and service providers. On implementation, ESMA’s interim MiCA register is cited as containing 626 white papers reported by national authorities by end-2025, with information quality described as uneven and around 30-40% relating to admissions to trading of tokens that pre-date MiCA. The report also outlines authorisation and transition arrangements, including five crypto-asset service providers authorised in Spain by end-2025 and Spain’s use of the full 18-month grandfathering period for firms already registered with the Bank of Spain for anti-money laundering purposes.

The Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) and Data Protection Authority (DPA) have released final reports from four multi-entity projects run in their regulatory sandboxes to examine how data sharing can be used to prevent and detect economic crime, and whether regulatory changes may be needed. The reports are due to be presented at a dedicated seminar on 6 February 2026. A payment-fraud project involving DNB, Nordea, SpareBank 1, Eika Gruppen and Norwegian Computing Center assessed the legal scope to share transaction and other payment information between payment service providers to prevent, investigate and detect payment fraud, comparing bilateral exchange with a central hub approach and mapping how confidentiality, GDPR and anti-money laundering tipping-off constraints shape permissible sharing, including with police and telecom operators. Stø AS’ BankID Antisvindel 2.0 project examined the feasibility and legality of expanding data flows into an upgraded BankID anti-fraud system, focusing on whether BankID relying parties can be contractually required to submit additional datapoints, and analysing confidentiality rules, controller responsibilities and lawful bases for processing, including where clearer legal gateways for information sharing may be needed. Finance Norway Insurance Operations’ project scoped a public tip channel for suspected insurance fraud, with structured web intake (including optional anonymity), initial verification by the industry body and controlled onward access for insurers in a portal with a defined retention period, alongside analysis of GDPR and how insurers’ confidentiality obligations interact with the model. Finally, Eika Gruppen and KPMG’s project explored the legal headroom for more systematic inter-bank data sharing in anti-money laundering work across detection, investigation and customer risk assessment phases, identifying where current rules provide limited scope and how proposed changes to the Norwegian Financial Institutions Act could expand more preventive and structured sharing.

The Bank of Israel’s (BOI) Banking Supervision Department has published for public comment a draft Proper Conduct of Banking Business Directive, “Supervisory Framework for Small and New Banks”, which would tailor regulatory and supervisory requirements to a bank’s size, complexity and systemic importance. The framework introduces supervisory tiers and a preparatory phase for newly licensed banks to allow gradual implementation of requirements, while aligning with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s proportionality approach. The draft sets three supervisory tiers based on total assets, with Tier 1 up to NIS 15 billion, Tier 2 above NIS 15 billion and below NIS 50 billion, and Tier 3 above NIS 50 billion. When crossing the Tier 1 and Tier 2 thresholds, the Supervisor of Banks may consider granting a transition period of up to two years to move to the next tier. For newly licensed banks, the proposal includes preparatory stages of up to three years, extendable by up to two years in certain cases, with activity limits including for Tier 1 a deposits cap of NIS 2 billion, and an extension conditional on deposits not exceeding NIS 5 billion. The adjustments contemplated across reviewed banking directives include relief and proportional calibration in capital and leverage, liquidity and its calculation, concentration limits, board size and composition, organisational flexibility including consolidation and outsourcing of functions, risk management tools, and flexibility for small and digital-bank business models. If finalised, the directive would replace Proper Conduct of Banking Business Directive No. 480 and broaden the earlier adjustments to cover both new and existing banks. The draft follows the August 2025 recommendations of an interministerial team on retail banking competition and is positioned alongside legislative initiatives being advanced with the Ministry of Finance to further reduce entry barriers, including through graduated licensing.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has published a fintech policy report assessing Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem and setting out a strategic agenda focused on enabling innovation-friendly regulation, advancing inclusion through digital infrastructure, and strengthening financial system integrity. Insights are drawn from a nationwide fintech survey and stakeholder engagements, including a June 2025 closed-door workshop and the October 2025 Central Bank of Nigeria Fintech Roundtable, and are used to identify regulatory, supervisory and infrastructure gaps affecting time-to-market, compliance burden and cross-border scaling. The report highlights the scale of Nigeria’s real-time payments ecosystem, noting that more than 25% of electronic transactions are processed through real-time payment channels via the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) Instant Payment (NIP) platform, with close to 11 billion transactions in 2024 (up from 5 billion in 2022). Survey findings point to friction points for innovators: 87.5% of respondents reported that compliance costs significantly constrain innovation capacity, 62.5% cited approval delays and ambiguity in guidelines as leading challenges, and 37.5% indicated that bringing a new product to market can take more than 12 months once regulatory approvals are factored in. Cross-border expansion featured prominently, with 62.5% planning regional growth and supporting regulatory passporting, alongside proposals to pilot mutual recognition approaches with peer regulators in markets including Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Senegal. On emerging technologies, 87.5% reported using artificial intelligence for fraud detection and 62.5% were very interested in an AI-focused regulatory sandbox, while system integrity was framed around stronger anti-money laundering supervision and know-your-customer requirements, coordinated enforcement actions and Nigeria’s reported exit from the Financial Action Task Force grey list. A set of ten priority policy options is outlined, including establishing a standing fintech engagement forum, operationalising a single regulatory window supported by a digital licensing and supervisory portal, expanding regulatory sandboxes and innovation pilots (including AI and RegTech), accelerating open banking rollout, improving access to API-based digital identity verification, strengthening interoperability and data-sharing infrastructure including phased completion of expanded Global Standing Instruction coverage expected by 2026, and advancing regional regulatory harmonisation and passporting pilots. The annex proposes sequenced action points across three phases: Phase 1 (0–3 months) covers setting up the engagement forum, issuing an open banking implementation roadmap, scoping the single regulatory window and smart licensing gateway, and coordinating a review of Payment Service Bank lending restrictions and digital identity access; Phase 2 (3–9 months) includes launching a sandbox 2.0 pilot cohort, operationalising a fintech credit guarantee window with development finance institutions, issuing open finance guidance on data portability and consumer protection, and initiating bilateral consultations on regulatory passporting; Phase 3 (9–18 months) envisages formalising a fintech advisory council, launching a regulatory engagement platform, embedding supervisory technology pilots, and participating in Economic Community of West African States and African Union regulatory alignment fora.

Ghana's Ministry of Finance announced the signing of an inter-agency agreement aimed at strengthening anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and proliferation financing (AML/CFT/PF) controls across the gold sector, with a particular focus on artisanal and small-scale gold mining. The agreement is positioned as a coordinated national response to gold-related financial crime risks during Ghana’s mutual evaluation by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA). Built on the Gold-sector AML/CFT/PF Joint Action Plan, the pact commits signatory agencies including the Bank of Ghana, the Financial Intelligence Centre, the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), the Minerals Commission and the Office of the Registrar of Companies to sustained action across three pillars: legal and regulatory reform, law enforcement and financial intelligence, and due diligence and beneficial ownership. The Ministry highlighted steps already taken, including the creation of an AML/CFT/PF desk at GoldBod, implementation of the Registrar of Companies’ beneficial ownership sanctions regime for non-compliant gold companies, and the start of application programming interface integration to enable real-time data sharing between the Registrar of Companies and GoldBod. The Ministry of Finance’s Mining and Industry Unit within the Real Sector Division is mandated to provide structured oversight to maintain continuity of the reforms beyond the GIABA assessment, with technical support for the work acknowledged from the UK-Ghana Gold Programme.

The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) has published a Digital Asset Custody Framework setting expectations for how Dealer Members operating Crypto-Asset Trading Platforms in Canada must safeguard client and firm digital assets. Imposed through terms and conditions of membership as an interim regime, it requires crypto assets and tokenized assets including stablecoins to be held with approved digital asset custodians within defined limits or under internal custody using satisfactory custody technology, while leaving traditional securities custody requirements unchanged. A tiered model links the percentage of a Dealer Member’s crypto assets that may be held at a single crypto custodian to the custodian’s capabilities: Tier 1 and Tier 2 custodians may hold up to 100%, Tier 3 up to 75%, and Tier 4 up to 40%, with Tier 4 also serving as the benchmark for internal-custody equivalency. Minimum capital expectations are calibrated by tier and jurisdiction, ranging from CAD 10,000,000 for Canadian Tier 2 to Tier 4 custodians to CAD 100,000,000 for Canadian Tier 1 custodians, and from CAD 100,000,000 for foreign Tier 2 to Tier 4 custodians to CAD 150,000,000 for foreign Tier 1 custodians, based on audited financial statements prepared under IFRS or US GAAP. Technology and governance safeguards include SOC 2 or ISAE 3000 Type 2 assurance on Security and Availability for all acceptable crypto custodians, additional Confidentiality and Processing Integrity coverage for higher tiers, crypto-asset specific assurance and additional cybersecurity assurance for Tier 2, and annual independent penetration testing for all tiers except Tier 1, alongside insurance and legal controls requiring custodians to be regulated as a bank or trust company in a Basel Accord jurisdiction and independent from exchange operations. Tokenized financial assets must generally be custodied with entities qualifying as Acceptable Securities Locations under CIRO’s existing rules, supplemented by digital-custody safeguards including broader SOC 2 or ISAE 3000 coverage and Tier 1-equivalent insurance; segregation outcomes are reinforced through daily segregation calculations, prompt remediation and a five-day buy-in expectation for unresolved deficiencies, a 20% cap on Dealer Member self-custody of crypto assets, and monitoring and reporting obligations that include breach reporting and potential supervisory escalation for repeated violations.

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), working with the Behavioural Insights Team, published a research report on how gamification features on digital investing platforms can harm retail investors and how selected game-like techniques could be used to improve outcomes. Alongside a literature and environmental scan, the report presents results from a randomized controlled trial indicating that diversification-focused gamification features modestly increased portfolio diversification in a simulated trading environment. The report builds on earlier OSC research finding that awarding points with negligible economic value increased trading frequency by almost 40%, and that social gamification elements such as social interactions and copy trading increased trading in promoted stocks by 12% and 18%, respectively. The scan highlights individual-level mitigations intended to help investors recognise and respond more carefully to potentially harmful design features, including educational interventions, enhanced disclosures and labels, opt-in approaches with informed consent, and friction-based measures such as confirmation steps and cool-down periods before risky trades. In the experiment, more than 4,000 Canadians allocated a hypothetical USD 10,000 across eight equities in a simulated platform and were assigned to one of four treatments or a control group; the four treatments used diversification scores, goal framing, leaderboards, or non-economic rewards (badges) linked to diversification. Across treatments, the diversification index improved by 3.5% to 4.5% relative to the control, and portfolio concentration in the largest asset was lower in each treatment group, with the diversification score treatment showing the highest average diversification and statistical significance after adjustment. Based on the findings, the report recommends that regulatory and supervisory approaches address gamification risks without precluding positive applications, and that authorities conduct further research on effective mitigations and constructive use cases alongside policy development. It also encourages regulators and other stakeholders to apply gamification techniques in investor education.

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board has issued its final notice setting the hypothetical macro-financial conditions that 32 large U.S. banks must use for the 2026 supervisory stress test and confirmed that the existing stress-capital-buffer requirements will remain in place until the 2027 test cycle. Waiting one year allows the Board to incorporate public feedback on supervisory models before recalculating banks’ individual buffers, according to Vice Chair for Supervision . The two-year severely adverse scenario models a 5.5-percentage-point rise in unemployment to a 10 % peak, a 30 % drop in house prices, a 39 % fall in commercial real-estate prices and sharp market-wide shocks—including higher corporate-bond spreads and a 58 % equity slump—while largely retaining the parameters proposed in October. Banks with major trading or custodial operations must also run a counterparty default and global-market-shock add-on; the latter now applies milder shocks to agency mortgage securities and some commodities for plausibility. A brief methodology note confirms use of 2025 supervisory models with only limited adjustments. Public comments on broader transparency proposals, including future scenario design and disclosure processes, are due by 21 February 2026. Any modelling refinements arising from that consultation will feed into the 2027 cycle, when new stress-capital-buffer percentages are expected to be set.

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted a package of proposals aimed at lowering vehicle insurance premiums by tightening the state’s approach to motor vehicle insurance fraud and recalibrating litigation-driven cost drivers, including eligibility for non-economic damages. The proposals cite high average premiums of just over USD 4,000 annually and rising fraud indicators, including 1,729 staged crashes in 2023 and 43,811 suspected motor vehicle insurance fraud incidents reported to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) Insurance Frauds Bureau in 2025, up from 24,238 in 2020. Measures include reviving the Motor Vehicle Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention Board, expanding prosecutors’ ability to pursue penalties for organizing staged accidents, partnering with District Attorneys, targeting medical providers involved in fraudulent diagnoses, and addressing illegal out-of-state vehicle registrations. The package also seeks to extend insurers’ 30-day window to identify and report fraud and reduce barriers to alleging fraud in court while preserving consumer protections, cap non-economic damages for drivers engaged in unlawful conduct at the time of an incident, restrict recoverable damages for drivers deemed mostly at fault, tighten the no-fault “serious injury” threshold through objective medical standards, and reform joint and several liability so defendants under 50 percent at fault are responsible only for the damages they caused. Additional elements would require clearer policyholder notifications and explanations for rate changes and mandate that insurers offer discounts when drivers voluntarily opt into programs intended to reduce unsafe driving and fraud.

In remarks delivered in his official capacity at the Investment Company Institute Winter Board Meeting, Brian Daly, Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Investment Management, outlined how the division is thinking about artificial intelligence in investment management and encouraged advisers and investment companies to engage with staff on how existing rules affect AI deployment. Daly said AI adoption across the industry remains uneven and often tentative, with liability concerns cited as the main impediment, and argued that AI’s goal of removing humans from real-time decision loops raises different oversight challenges than earlier quantitative models. He also pointed to areas where the SEC’s technology-related framework remains behind market practice, including the lack of a comprehensive electronic delivery rule, ongoing uncertainty about which electronic communications fall within the books and records rule and recordkeeping requirements still shaped by paper-era processes. On disclosure delivery, he noted that many requests focus on making electronic delivery the default, typically via emailed PDFs, but suggested a broader rethinking in which a fund- or adviser-provided large language model agent trained on the full set of fund documents could answer investor questions in plain English, while acknowledging open questions such as whether such tools would be treated as marketing, require investment adviser registration, and how they would be supervised. He invited market participants to bring ideas and constraints to the division, including exploring pilot programs and seeking no-action relief or staff guidance.