Global Regulator & Central Bank News Roundup

Australia's Treasury has published a consultation paper on proposals to enhance member protections in the superannuation system, following the collapses of the Shield Master Fund and First Guardian Master Fund, which have affected around 11,000 Australians with up to AUD 1 billion invested across the two schemes lost. Responding to the identified risks and deficiencies, the consultation sets out five areas for potential reform. For platform governance, it proposes defining “Platform RSEs” and “Platform Trustees” and canvasses options to lift minimum standards through mandatory holding limits, codified onboarding due diligence, restrictions on certain conflicted listing or flow-linked payments, and constraints on operating models that separate the trustee function from day-to-day platform oversight. It also considers increasing maximum civil penalties under the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, including doubling the current maximum or moving closer to the Corporations Act 2001 settings. To slow inter-fund rollovers, it outlines a waiting period mechanism that requires member reconfirmation after a prescribed delay and risk notifications from the transferring fund, applied either to all switches or targeted to rollovers to SMSFs and platform or higher-risk destinations. On switching-related advice fees, options include prohibiting fee deductions where advice recommends a fund switch, or strengthening and codifying receiving-fund controls such as mandatory reviews, fee caps and clearer adviser onboarding and monitoring expectations. For compensation, it proposes a rules-based obligation for Platform Trustees to compensate members for “eligible losses” linked to external fraud or theft causing an investment product collapse, funded from trustee capital and triggered by an independent decision-maker.

Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) has launched a dedicated social media guideline for commercial banks, intended to standardise how banks manage official social media activity in a more directed, professional and accountable way given its role as a primary channel for communication and customer engagement and address the risks that result from fast-moving online sentiment that can translate into reputational stress and, in extreme cases, confidence shocks that may affect financial stability. The guideline is organised around three pillars: governance (strategy, policies, roles and oversight for social media), risk management (embedding social media risk into the bank’s risk framework), and compliance and monitoring (ensuring activity is aligned with internal policies and requirements). It introduces a "social media stress test" and a crisis management approach that includes a staged "digital bank run" scenario and an early-hours critical action timeline to guide escalation and response, drawing on the Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse episodes as reference cases. It also sets out a risk taxonomy for banks’ social media use, spanning reputational risk (i.e. viral misinformation or poorly handled public complaints), regulatory and compliance risk (i.e. breaches linked to marketing, disclosures and recordkeeping), cybersecurity and fraud risk (i.e. phishing, impersonation, deepfakes and account takeover), insider threat and HR risk (i.e. staff misconduct or leakage of sensitive information), and operational and liquidity risk (weak account governance or incident response that can amplify broader pressure). The guidance further tightens expectations for bank partnerships with financial influencers, including transparency, conflict of interest management and clear bank accountability for published content and flags that OJK is in the process of preparing a dedicated regulation on finfluencers.

Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has held discussions with securities and derivatives business operators on enhancing Know Your Customer (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) standards to strengthen financial crime controls. Building on the SEC’s 2025 enhancement of KYC/CDD standards for digital asset business operators, the proposals aim to introduce consistent supervisory guidelines for securities and derivatives operators and align expectations with the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO), with the measures expected to take effect within April. Under the proposed standards, operators would be required to perform enhanced CDD and intensify monitoring where a customer’s stated occupation, income sources or financial status is inconsistent with observed behaviour or transaction patterns, with examples including disproportionate cash or share transfers, substantial borrowing to invest despite limited registered capital, or large transfers of shares between same-name accounts across operators that exceed financial capacity. Where reasonable grounds for suspicion exist, operators would be expected to consider submitting Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) to AMLO, including scenarios where funds enter and leave a customer account on the same day with no or minimal trading and enhanced CDD cannot establish a reasonable explanation. The framework also calls for ongoing scrutiny and an additional level of review after enhanced CDD, alongside risk controls such as withdrawal delays, reduced trading limits or refusal of service, and specific withdrawal delay measures for customers who do not provide supporting evidence of income sources or financial status at account opening. On deposits and withdrawals, the SEC plans clearer requirements focused on use of bank accounts in the customer’s own name and restrictions on third-party accounts and cash transactions, while setting verification and escalation steps for cases where cash is deposited at a bank into a trading account, including enhanced CDD where amounts appear inconsistent with the customer profile and STR submission with continued monitoring if explanations remain unreasonable.

The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) convened its 44th Chairs’ Meeting, hosted by the Securities and Exchange Commission Philippines, and approved its 2026 workplans, timelines, and budgets, marking the start of initiatives under the ACMF Action Plan 2026–2030. The priorities set out under the plan span investment connectivity, sustainable finance, cross-border supervision and enforcement cooperation, and the use of emerging technologies to strengthen investor protection and cybersecurity. Work on deeper regional integration includes the planned introduction of “ASEAN Diamonds”, studies on facilitating ASEAN cross-listings and Depositary Receipts issuances, and the creation of ASEAN indices, alongside intensified capacity-building across member jurisdictions. On sustainable finance, the ACMF plans to release the next phase of the Mitigation co-benefit and Adaptation for Resilience Guide and the ASEAN Code of Conduct for External Verifiers, while continuing dialogue with the International Sustainability Standards Board on IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. The meeting also noted progress on the ASEAN Collective Investment Schemes Framework and the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard. Following Chairs’ approval, the ACMF further launched the Knowledge Network of Supervision and Enforcement Directors to support information sharing, targeted capacity-building, early warning mechanisms, and risk monitoring, including for digital asset-related activities. The Chairs also welcomed three new working groups in relation to enforcement and supervision, Islamic finance, and market promotions.

During the first session of Vietnam’s 16th National Assembly, lawmakers adopted a resolution approving the Prime Minister’s proposal to appoint Pham Duc An as Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam for the 2026–2031 government term. He brings three decades of commercial-banking experience, including senior leadership roles at BIDV and VRB and later as Chairman of Agribank, and previously served as Chief of Office of the State Bank of Vietnam. He has also coordinated across policymakers and the industry as Chair of the Vietnam Banks Association and through his work as a National Assembly delegate, including the Economic & Finance Committee.

The Central Bank of the Solomon Islands (CBSI), working with Australia, has started nationwide consultations to develop a unified Quick Response (QR) code payment standard for Solomon Islands aimed at improving interoperability across digital payment providers and broadening access to electronic payments. The proposed standard follows recommendations from the National Financial Inclusion Taskforce’s Digital Finance Working Group, supports the National Financial Inclusion Strategy 3 (2021–2025), and aligns with CBSI’s mandate under the Payment Systems Act 2022. The unified QR code is intended to support government payments, person-to-person transfers and merchant payments, while enabling interoperability across banks, mobile and e-money providers and other financial service providers so customers can pay merchants across different QR platforms without holding multiple accounts. CBSI is in an assessment phase to evaluate the technical feasibility and market usability of the unified QR code standard, with the findings to inform next steps and potential implementation.

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) have published a discussion paper quantifying how a European risk-sharing mechanism could help narrow the natural catastrophe insurance protection gap, combining a risk-based, premium-financed insurance pool with a loan-based backstop for extreme tail events that exceed the pool’s capacity. The paper frames the mechanism as complementary to primary insurers, reinsurers, market-based solutions and national schemes, but argues their capacity may be insufficient for large-scale disasters. It estimates that around 75% of historical economic losses from natural catastrophes were uninsured, while a modelled view focused on property suggests an EU protection gap of around 50%. Modelling indicates that pooling risks across countries and perils could reduce capital needed to back aggregated risk by up to 67% versus standalone national solutions. As an illustrative design targeting a remaining protection gap below 10% for property risks, the paper uses a catastrophe excess-of-loss structure with a 50-year return-period attachment point per country, a 1,000-year limit and a 50% quota share layer; it also assumes a pool starting cash position of EUR 10 billion. Simulations suggest a loan-based backstop could require EUR 10 billion to EUR 65 billion of lending capacity depending on tail coverage and climate dynamics, and could reduce pool members’ net present funding costs by around 18% in years when the backstop is triggered. The paper is intended as a technical contribution to inform further policy discussions.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has opened public consultations on revised Implementing Technical Standards for EU supervisory reporting and for supervisory benchmarking, setting out a simplification package intended to reduce reporting burden for banks while maintaining the information needed for supervision. The package would better align requirements with supervisory needs and reduce the number of data points in EU-harmonised reporting by around 50%, while adding new elements linked to IFRS 18, environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB). The proposals include stronger proportionality for small and non-complex institutions (SNCIs), including a ‘core plus supplement’ approach, adjustments to reporting frequency and scope, and improved alignment of definitions and qualitative elements. Separate EU-wide stress test and supervisory benchmarking collections would be integrated into regular reporting, and the EBA plans an EU-wide public repository of European and national supervisory data requests alongside guidance on data-request best practices; the package also includes an overview of national data collections and simplification efforts by competent authorities. For credit risk and IFRS 9 benchmarking, the update would reflect changes to Article 78 of Directive 2013/36/EU and, once integrated into the supervisory reporting ITS, remove the related requirements from the ITS on benchmarking of internal models. The EBA indicated the changes would apply from September 2027.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has launched a public consultation on draft revised guidelines setting supervisory expectations for how institutions should manage and monitor exposures to shadow banking entities (SBEs) carrying out banking activities outside a regulated framework. The revision aligns the guidelines’ scope and definitions with the Capital Requirements Regulation and the maximum-harmonised SBE identification criteria in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2779, while keeping the guidelines focused on governance, risk management and internal limits. The draft expects institutions subject to the large exposures regime to identify and control concentration risks from SBE exposures through robust processes, including management body oversight, integration into ICAAP and breach action plans, and by setting both aggregate limits (relative to Tier 1 eligible capital) and tighter individual limits. Under the principal approach, limit calibration should reflect the institution’s business model and risk appetite, the size of its SBE exposures and interconnectedness, and counterparty-specific factors such as regulatory status, financial situation (including Tier 1 capital, leverage and liquidity) and portfolio quality. Where requirements for the principal approach cannot be met, the fallback approach applies the general large exposures limits under Article 395 of the Capital Requirements Regulation. The update also removes elements now covered by the binding framework, including the previous 0.25% eligible-capital materiality threshold linked to the SBE definition, and does not propose introducing additional quantitative limits at this stage.

The Council of the European Union has decided to extend Petra Hielkema’s mandate as Chairperson of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) for a second five-year term starting on 1 September 2026. The decision follows a positive assessment by EIOPA’s Board of Supervisors of Ms Hielkema’s conduct and performance during her first term and the Board's recommendation to prolong her mandate.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published guidance on how banks and entities under Article 1b of the Banking Act should manage digital fraud risks, following a survey of 19 banks and FINMA’s observation of a steady increase in digital fraud cases at banks since the end of 2022. The guidance links digital fraud to client losses, direct operational impacts on institutions, and the misuse of bank accounts to launder fraud proceeds, and stresses the need for a risk management framework that identifies, assesses, controls and monitors these risks across business activities, including online onboarding and unauthorised account access. Survey findings highlight gaps in governance and reporting, including unclear allocations of responsibility, the absence of a dedicated digital fraud policy at eight institutions and limited use of key fraud metrics in senior management reporting. Weaknesses were also identified in proactive detection and incident handling: 26% of surveyed institutions lacked horizon scanning processes, seven had no standard response plan for digital fraud, and most did not set or monitor response times or offer dedicated fraud reporting channels. The guidance notes that some institutions do not deploy client authentication controls such as geo-blocking, IP risk rating or device fingerprinting, and that the effectiveness of key controls and role-based staff training are not consistently reviewed. On account opening and financial crime prevention, FINMA describes rising misuse of accounts opened online and account takeovers, with criminals using forged documents and deepfakes, and reports significant variation in suspicious activity reporting related to online fraud and money mules. Transaction monitoring practices were characterised by limited use of know your customer (KYC) information and reliance on relatively high fixed thresholds of CHF 100,000 or CHF 200,000, which can make it harder to identify digital fraud cases promptly.

The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) has published a report on artificial intelligence in the Dutch asset management sector, finding that adoption is increasing but firms’ governance, policies and controls are not keeping pace. Based on a survey of 323 institutions, 53 percent already use AI or plan to do so within 12 months, with higher uptake among larger asset managers, proprietary traders and operators of organised trading facilities. AI is currently used mainly for information gathering, data analysis and report writing, while proprietary traders also use it for price forecasting and trading strategy optimisation. Findings further indicate that investment remains limited, with 71 percent of respondents having no dedicated AI budget for 2024, although 60 percent expect to increase spending over the next two years. Among AI users, natural language processing and general purpose models dominate and 68 percent host AI solutions on commercial cloud infrastructure. Among the main benefits cited were efficiency gains, stronger data analysis and better internal processes, while the main challenges highlighted include data quality, data protection, limited explainability of complex models and dependence on a small number of mainly non-European technology providers. Governance gaps were material: 26 percent of surveyed firms had no policy for employee use of AI, 35 percent had no technical or procedural controls, only 28 percent had implemented policy for generative AI or covered it in broader policy, and 54 percent had no AI-specific ethics handbook or code of conduct. The AFM reiterated that existing requirements for controlled and ethical business operations also apply to AI use and that firms are expected to strengthen responsibilities, documentation, controls, explainability and data quality arrangements as well as be transparent with clients about the role of AI in investment policy and portfolio construction.

The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) published a note summarising its dialogue with the largest credit institutions at the end of 2025 and in 2026 on how geopolitical unrest is affecting credit risk, building on earlier discussions in April 2025 and a June 2025 note on higher credit risk and impairment needs. It treats geopolitics as an increasingly structural risk driver and outlines expectations for tighter monitoring, scenario analysis and customer engagement, alongside judgemental overlays where impairment models do not capture the changed risk picture. Supervisory focus centres on corporate exposures that depend on exports, global supply chains, and stable energy and commodity prices, including customers with activities in or significant dependence on China, the United States and the Middle East. The note highlights trade restrictions, tariffs, sanctions and national-security interventions as key risk channels, and points to the United States and Israel’s attack on Iran on 28 February 2026 as a recent shock that disrupted energy supplies and trade routes, driving volatility in energy prices and freight rates. While institutions have not systematically tightened access to credit or credit terms, it notes that a long and intensive Iran conflict, despite the recently concluded ceasefire, could make tightening necessary, particularly if there are long-term effects on oil and gas extraction infrastructure. The largest institutions are increasing monitoring and using updated macroeconomic scenarios in scenario analyses and stress tests, but still face data gaps on customers’ indirect value-chain exposures and reliance on subcontractors, leading to greater use of proxy indicators and qualitative analysis. Smaller institutions are expected to rely more on qualitative assessments and dialogue with relevant customers. For impairments, the FSA expects management estimates to address risks the models cannot capture, including the likelihood and effects of a prolonged Iran conflict and broader impacts on vulnerable companies and the economy. Going forward, the note emphasises that monitoring, scenario analyses and customer dialogue should be adjusted on an ongoing basis, and that impairment provisions should be supplemented by management estimates to reflect complex geopolitical risk drivers.

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has established a new Public-Private Partnership to strengthen the detection, prevention and disruption of financial fraud through enhanced national coordination between public authorities and financial institutions. The framework is intended to enable systematic sharing of insights on fraud typologies, emerging trends and sector vulnerabilities, with an initial focus on consumer retail payment fraud, including unauthorised payment transactions and cases where consumers are manipulated into making payments to fraudsters. Permanent members include the MFSA, the Malta Police Force, the Office of the Arbiter for Financial Services, the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit and the Central Bank of Malta. For its first term, non-permanent private sector members include the Malta Bankers’ Association and local credit institutions offering services to retail clients. Led by the MFSA’s Financial Crime Compliance function, the Partnership is structured around information sharing, enhanced cooperation and coordination, guidance and outreach, policy development and targeted supervisory efforts. The Partnership is expected to produce a public guidance paper and to support awareness initiatives, typology workshops and policy discussions.

Spain's National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has published a guide on "Digital persuasion for investors" explaining how online brokers, trading apps, platforms and investment websites use digital engagement practices to influence retail investors’ decisions and behaviours, and setting out practical steps to mitigate their impact. The guide distinguishes traditional persuasion from more sophisticated and personalised digital techniques that combine interface design, automated prompts and the use of user data. It catalogues common mechanisms such as drip pricing where an initially attractive price is shown and mandatory costs appear later in the journey, and unjustified friction (sludge), such as excessive obstacles to cancelling a securities account or withdrawing funds, framing of risk and returns, and scarcity or urgency claims, alongside other practices affecting choice structure, information presentation and decision pressure. CNMV also flags that some techniques can amount to “dark patterns” when they are used to confuse, coerce or manipulate investors in ways that run against their interests and may breach applicable rules, while noting that similar tools can be used legitimately depending on purpose and implementation. To mitigate these effects, the CNMV recommends practical steps such as verifying the platform is registered and supervised, understanding the product and its real costs, and avoiding decisions made under time pressure. Suggested behavioural and technical measures include disabling non-essential notifications, reducing how often the app or platform is checked, using a short pre-trade checklist (for example whether the product fits the investment plan and whether the idea was prompted by the platform), and applying a cooling-off period such as waiting 24 hours before investing in something newly discovered. The guide also advises limiting the data shared with platforms, switching off personalisation controls where available, interacting as little as possible with “trending” or “popular” content, and periodically clearing browsing history and cookies.

Further to the release of the feedback letter on its discussion paper on asset tokenisation,the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has published a consultation paper proposing a principles-based framework for asset tokenisation. The proposals do not create a new standalone regime. Instead, they clarify how Bermuda’s existing legislative frameworks apply to tokenised assets. The proposed framework entails two tiers. The first tier is a legal and regulatory architecture that applies a substance-over-form approach, meaning tokenised assets are classified according to their economic function rather than the technology used, while recognising that tokenised investments may be structured either as digital twins representing off-chain assets or as native tokens existing solely on-chain. The second tier consists of entity-specific requirements tailored to the roles performed in the tokenisation chain. Within the first tier, the proposed legal architecture would introduce a harmonised definition of tokenised investments across the Investment Business Act 2003, Investment Funds Act 2006, Fund Administration Provider Business Act 2019, Digital Asset Business Act 2018 and Digital Asset Issuance Act 2020, supported by optional mirrored exemptions to reduce dual licensing where activities relate exclusively to tokenised investments. The operational framework would classify participants as Primary Tokenisers, Secondary Offerors and Custodians and apply tailored requirements on due diligence, legal structuring, reserve assets, bankruptcy remoteness, reconciliations and proof of reserve for digital twins, while shifting the focus for native tokens to smart contract integrity, governance and token-level risk management. Common conduct, cyber, outsourcing and operational resilience standards would apply across both models. Tokenised investment funds would receive specific treatment, including proposed amendments to allow fully on-chain fund registers and tokenisation-specific disclosures among other things.

Al Etihad Payments, a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), published updated operational metrics for Aani, the UAE’s national instant payments platform, highlighting rapid growth in usage and merchant adoption alongside instant account-to-account settlement times of no more than three seconds. Registered users have surpassed 12.5 million, supported by connectivity with 74 licensed financial institutions and integration with 85% of banks, 10% of exchange houses, and 5% of digital wallets and finance companies. The platform recorded a sixfold year-on-year increase in transfers and an average monthly growth rate of 10% throughout 2025, with around 25,000 transfers executed daily using mobile numbers only. Merchant uptake reached approximately 774,000 across the UAE. Current services include QR code payments, Request to Pay, transfers using a mobile number or Emirates ID, and the ability to manage multiple accounts from different banks and digital wallets through a single application. Additional services are expected to include cross-border payments, electronic direct debit, e-cheques, and business-to-business payments.

Responding to the Middle East conflict, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) announced a targeted package of temporary economic support measures, effective immediately, to ease short-term operational and financial pressures on its business and retail community. The package combines flexible payment arrangements and administrative payment relief from the DIFC Authority with temporary regulatory relief from the Dubai Financial Services Authority. Measures by the DIFC Authority include flexible payment plans for retail and commercial clients, instalment plans for licence renewal fees, additional support for retailers, and grace periods on certain administrative payments linked to lease contracts, the Registrar of Companies, the Data Protection Department and employee registration into DEWS. The Dubai Financial Services Authority relief is temporary and applies to both new applicants and existing regulated firms in Dubai International Financial Centre.

The U.S. Council of Economic Advisers published a model-based assessment of whether prohibiting yield on dollar-backed stablecoins would materially protect bank lending. Focusing on the issuer-level yield ban in the GENIUS Act, and on proposals to tighten restrictions further, the analysis concludes that a binding yield prohibition would have only a very small effect on bank lending under an ample-reserves monetary policy regime and would impose net welfare costs in its baseline calibration. The analysis attributes the limited lending effect to reserve composition and balance sheet mechanics, i.e. stablecoin issuance does not necessarily drain deposits from the banking system because reserves invested in short-term Treasuries tend to recycle back into bank deposits elsewhere in the system. Lending capacity is only reduced for the share of stablecoin reserves held as cash or in bank deposits treated as fully reserved and therefore unavailable for intermediation. In the baseline calibration, with a stablecoin market of roughly USD 300 billion, eliminating yield shifts about USD 54.4 billion from stablecoins into conventional deposits but increases net lending by only USD 2.1 billion, or about 0.02% of total loans, with the loan rate falling by around 0.69 basis points. Large banks account for about 76% of the additional lending, while community banks contribute about USD 500 million, equivalent to a 0.026% increase in community bank lending. The estimated net welfare effect is a loss of around USD 800 million per year. Even the largest lending gains in the paper’s scenario analysis depend on stacking multiple “worst-case” assumptions simultaneously, including stablecoins growing to about six times their current share of deposits, all stablecoin reserves being locked in non-lendable cash rather than Treasuries, and a shift away from the Federal Reserve’s ample-reserves framework. Under those combined assumptions, the lending gains rise to USD 531 billion or 4.4% of total loans. Separately, the paper notes that the GENIUS Act’s issuer-only yield prohibition does not explicitly bar affiliate or intermediary arrangements, citing Coinbase’s “USDC Rewards” funded in part through revenue sharing with Circle, and that some variants of the proposed CLARITY Act would seek to extend a yield ban to intermediaries.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has approved a notice of proposed rulemaking to implement key requirements and standards under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) for FDIC-supervised permitted payment stablecoin issuers and insured depository institutions providing specified payment stablecoin-related custody and safekeeping services. The proposal would establish a prudential framework covering reserve assets, redemption, capital and risk management, while also clarifying the treatment of stablecoin reserve deposits for deposit insurance purposes. Under the proposed framework, a permitted payment stablecoin issuer would have to maintain identifiable reserve assets backing outstanding payment stablecoins on at least a one-to-one basis, with reserves limited to specified high-quality liquid assets including U.S. currency, Federal Reserve balances, demand deposits, U.S. Treasury securities with a remaining maturity of 93 days or less, certain overnight repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements, and registered government money market funds invested solely in those assets. The proposal would cap exposure to any single eligible financial institution at 40% of reserve assets, require a monthly public reserve composition report (with examination by a registered public accounting firm and CEO/CFO certification), and set redemption policy standards including a maximum redemption timeframe of two business days and notification to the FDIC when redemption requests exceed 10% of outstanding issuance value within 24 hours. It would also introduce principles-based operational, compliance and information technology risk management standards, require initial and annual anti-money laundering and sanctions program certifications, and establish reporting, audit and tailored capital and operational backstop requirements, including a USD 5 million floor for minimum capital during an initial de novo period. For deposit insurance, the proposal would specify that deposits held as reserves backing payment stablecoins are insured to the issuer as corporate deposits (up to the standard USD 250,000 limit per institution, aggregated with the issuer’s other corporate deposits) and are not insured on a pass-through basis to stablecoin holders; it would also codify that tokenized deposits are evaluated for deposit status without regard to the technology or recordkeeping used.

The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has invited public comment on proposed amendments to Regulation J that would allow U.S. banks and credit unions participating in the FedNow Service to use intermediaries other than Federal Reserve Banks to send funds transfers, expanding potential private-sector use cases including the U.S. domestic leg of cross-border payments. FedNow, launched on July 20, 2023 as a 24x7x365 interbank real-time gross settlement service for instant payments, currently restricts transfers to two U.S. banks because intermediaries other than Reserve Banks are not permitted under Regulation J. The proposal would align FedNow with the Fedwire Funds Service by allowing additional transfers before and after the FedNow leg, without changing the payment flow between FedNow participants or which entities can connect to the service. The accompanying staff memorandum assessed that the approach would not create material new money laundering, sanctions-evasion, or payment system integrity risks given its similarity to established correspondent-payment models. It would also retain Regulation J’s immediate funds-availability requirement but limit its application to cases where a beneficiary’s bank (not an intermediary) accepts a payment order over FedNow, as well as would clarify that certain "additional time" notices to Reserve Banks apply only to FedNow participant beneficiary banks receiving a payment order from a Reserve Bank.

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) issued a joint notice of proposed rulemaking to revise their AML/CFT program requirements for the banks they supervise, aligning them with a concurrently proposed Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) rule intended to implement the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. The proposal would define requirements for banks to establish and maintain effective AML/CFT programs designed to identify, assess, and mitigate illicit finance risks, and would formalize a FinCEN consultation role in certain supervisory and enforcement actions. Specifically, under the proposal, an effective program would require a risk-based set of internal policies, procedures and controls supported by risk assessment processes that evaluate money laundering and terrorist financing risks across products, services, distribution channels, customers and geographies, review and appropriately incorporate the government-wide AML/CFT priorities, and update promptly when risk profiles significantly change. Banks would also be required to calibrate attention and resources toward higher-risk customers and activities, incorporate ongoing customer due diligence, conduct independent program testing, provide ongoing training, and designate an AML/CFT officer located in the United States and accessible to FinCEN and the relevant agency, with the overall written program approved by the board, an equivalent governing body, or appropriate senior management. The proposal treats “having an effective AML/CFT program” as two separate obligations: first, a bank must establish a program that meets the specified components, and second, it must maintain that program by implementing it in all material respects. Once a bank has properly established the program, the agencies indicate they would take an AML/CFT enforcement action or a “significant AML/CFT supervisory action” under the program rule only where there is a significant or systemic failure to implement the established program, while failures to establish the program would remain fully subject to such actions. Before initiating an AML/CFT enforcement action or significant AML/CFT supervisory action, the relevant agency would generally be required to give the FinCEN Director an opportunity to review the proposed action and would provide written notice at least 30 days in advance and consider any input.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) have jointly issued the final rule that codifies the removal of "reputation risk" from their supervisory programs and bars examiners from criticising or taking adverse action against an institution on that basis. The rule defines reputation risk as the risk that an institution’s actions, omissions, or combination of actions could negatively affect public perception for reasons not clearly and directly related to the institution’s financial or operational condition. To prevent the agencies from using that concept to influence institutions’ customer relationships, the rule prohibits the agencies from requiring, instructing, or encouraging institutions to close accounts or to refuse, modify, or terminate accounts, products, or services based on a person’s or entity’s political, social, cultural, or religious views or beliefs, constitutionally protected speech, or solely because of politically disfavoured but lawful business activities perceived to present reputation risk. The final rule includes a carve-out for Office of Foreign Assets Control-sanctioned persons, entities, and jurisdictions and preserves the agencies’ authority to administer and enforce Bank Secrecy Act and anti money laundering requirements, while prohibiting use of those authorities as a pretext to reintroduce supervision for reputation risk. The final rule will become effective as of June 9, 2026.