Global Regulator & Central Bank News Roundup

The New Zealand Anti-Scam Alliance published its 2026 work programme, setting out cross-sector actions to protect New Zealanders from scams through improved disruption tools, data sharing, public guidance, and stronger sector codes and practices. The programme builds on work since the Alliance was established in July 2025, including banking scam protection commitments, updates to telecommunications and online scams codes, new fraud intelligence technology, and a cross-sector pilot that blocked more than 23,000 malicious domains and intercepted 3.1 million access attempts between Oct. 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026. For June to December 2026, the Alliance will advance measures across voluntary codes, collaboration, disruption, and education. Planned actions include a six-month review of banking scam protection commitments, public feedback on updates to the Telecommunications Forum’s Scam Prevention Code, research on cross-sector data sharing, expansion of Confirmation of Payee, a safe harbour to encourage online service providers to remove suspected scam content, a Trusted Flagger framework to help regulators and law enforcement provide reliable information on suspected scams to online providers and improve the speed and accuracy of content removal, wider 7726 scam and spam reporting for Google Android devices, a new New Zealand Police Economic Crime Team to improve targeting and investigation of prolific fraud and scam offenders, a cyber incident reporting portal, and more targeted public awareness campaigns.

Securities Commission Malaysia and Bursa Malaysia launched the MY Value Up Programme Guidebook, a practical, principles-based framework for public listed companies to prepare voluntary MY Value Up plans focused on medium to long term value creation, stronger capital discipline and clearer forward-looking disclosures. The programme, introduced in April 2026 under the Capital Market Masterplan 2026-2030, is aimed at catalysing strategic value creation among Malaysian PLCs and enhancing the attractiveness of Corporate Malaysia by improving capital and operational efficiency, value communication, investor engagement and market confidence. The guidebook gives companies a common reference point for setting out their business context, current state analysis, value-up objectives, growth strategies, capital allocation priorities, shareholder return frameworks and stakeholder engagement approach. It is underpinned by four core principles — voluntary, forward-looking, proportional and board accountability — and encourages a structured, board-led process that is embedded into management, reporting and investor relations practices. It also includes illustrative plan components, suggested financial and sector-specific metrics such as ROE, ROIC-WACC and shareholder return indicators, as well as qualitative considerations covering governance, sustainability, business continuity and digitalisation. Implementation will follow a phased roadmap. Following the April 2026 programme launch and June 2026 guidebook release, participating PLCs, initially focused on companies with market capitalisation above RM4 billion, are expected to submit Value Up Plans to SC and Bursa Malaysia by end-2026 to build familiarity with forward guidance disclosure. In 2027, participating companies are expected to voluntarily release their plans publicly, with the list of participants published to signal commitment and support greater market visibility.

The New Zealand Financial Markets Authority published findings from its engagement with insurers on how they manage customers’ interests when using non-monetary benefits and short-duration sales campaigns. The update reinforces expectations under the Conduct of Financial Institutions regime that insurers must treat consumers fairly, including where products and services are distributed through intermediaries. The FMA said these incentives can heighten conflicts of interest and may be inconsistent with fair conduct requirements even where they are not prohibited incentives. The findings show that most insurers have policies, processes, systems and controls to identify and manage conflicts from benefits and campaigns, but practices vary. Some insurers used narrow design processes, while others applied multi-layer approvals, board visibility or risk ratings. Oversight also varied, with some insurers reviewing campaigns only after they ended, some monitoring during the campaign period, and some relying on complaints or ad hoc feedback rather than proactive outcomes-based reviews. The FMA said insurers should be able to demonstrate that their controls for managing incentives are effective in practice. It will test insurers’ arrangements through supervisory and monitoring activity under the CoFI regime and may expect prompt changes, withdrawal of campaigns, remediation, licence condition changes, direction orders or civil action where weaknesses or breaches are identified.

Bank Negara Malaysia, the World Bank Group and the United Nations Development Programme Biodiversity Finance Initiative released a joint report providing guidance for Malaysian financial institutions and firms to assess and disclose nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. The report finds that nature loss poses material economic and financial risks for Malaysia, with 54% of Malaysian banks’ commercial lending at end-2024 directed to sectors with high or very high dependencies on ecosystem services and 36% to sectors exerting high or very high pressures on nature. Palm oil and construction are identified as particularly significant sources of exposure because of their economic importance, links to bank lending and material dependencies on and impacts on nature. The report applies the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare approach through surveys, interviews, an updated ENCORE analysis of commercial lending and pilot assessments with three financial institutions and two firms. It finds that awareness of nature-related risks is rising, but practical understanding remains limited, data is often fragmented, asset-level location information is incomplete, scenario analysis is still nascent and nature-related opportunities remain underexplored. Existing Malaysian sustainability frameworks remain largely climate-focused, while nature-related assessment and disclosure are still mostly voluntary and constrained by limited methodological support, capacity gaps and unclear regulatory expectations. The report recommends that financial institutions begin integrating nature into risk management, collect more granular client and asset data, and develop financing for nature-positive outcomes. Firms are encouraged to build internal capacity, use sector-specific guidance, consolidate existing data and extend climate and ESG governance to nature. Public sector entities are advised to improve access to nature data, integrate nature into the Malaysia Taxonomy, expand the Joint Committee on Climate Change mandate to cover nature, strengthen supervisory guidance and establish a phased path toward mandatory nature-related disclosure.

The European Banking Authority published draft methodology, templates and template guidance for the 2027 EU-wide stress test, launching the industry consultation earlier than in previous exercises to support banks’ preparation. The exercise introduces a simplified framework that reduces required data points by 55% compared with the previous EU-wide stress test, aligns information with harmonised supervisory reporting and integrates climate risks into the EU-wide stress test. The 2027 exercise will cover 63 banks from the European Union and Norway, including 47 from the euro area, representing 75% of the European Union banking sector. The stress test will use year-end 2026 figures and apply baseline and adverse scenarios over 2027 to 2029. The exercise remains a constrained bottom-up stress test with some top-down elements. Banks will project the impact of the common scenarios using their own models, subject to strict constraints and review by competent authorities, with prescribed parameters for net fee and commission income and sovereign credit loss paths and prescribed formulas for interest rate margin components. Results will feed into the supervisory review and evaluation process and be published by the European Banking Authority on a bank-by-bank and aggregate basis. The methodology focuses on solvency impacts across credit risk, including securitisations, market risk, counterparty credit risk and credit valuation adjustment, and operational risk, including conduct risk. Banks must also project the effect of the scenarios on net interest income and on profit and loss and capital items not covered by other risk types. No hurdle rates or capital thresholds are set for the exercise, but competent authorities will use the results as an input to supervisory assessments.

HM Treasury has issued a call for evidence to inform the Access to Banking Services Review, which is assessing whether declining access to in-person banking services in the UK is causing consumer detriment, including for specific customer groups. The review focuses on banking services rather than cash withdrawal or deposit services, which are already covered by legislation and Financial Conduct Authority powers. The call for evidence seeks input from financial institutions, consumers and consumer groups, local authorities, small and medium enterprises and trade bodies across the UK. It asks which in-person banking services remain essential, which groups require access, whether reduced access is causing detriment, how current provision and mitigations are working, and how in-person banking may evolve over the next five to 10 years and beyond.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has proposed mortgage rule changes that would give lenders more scope to assess individual circumstances when serving first-time buyers and other underserved borrowers. The consultation focuses on consumers who may be creditworthy but face barriers because of age, irregular income, foreign-currency income, past credit issues or the need for short-term bridging finance. The FCA would keep its responsible lending framework and Consumer Duty protections in place. The proposals would ease parts of the framework for interest-only and retirement interest-only mortgages, including by removing the need for a credible repayment strategy where the interest-only element is less than 25% of the lender’s valuation. They would also clarify that lenders may offer non-monthly payment schedules for borrowers with variable or irregular income, narrow the use of the Handbook definition of “credit-impaired customer,” adjust requirements for mortgages involving foreign currency or foreign income, and extend the maximum term for regulated bridging loans from 12 months to 24 months, including extensions. Responses are due by July 28, 2026.

The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority published a report on 2025 inspections of the largest Danish banks’ handling of ESG-related credit risks. The inspections found that the banks needed to strengthen how they identify, analyze and manage credit risks linked to environmental, climate, social and governance factors, with shortcomings relevant to other institutions with similar exposures. The main weaknesses concerned the identification of material ESG-related credit risks, portfolio analysis, credit processes and controls. The inspections showed a need for stronger assessment of both physical risks and transition risks, including future developments that may have limited probability but significant impact. Portfolio analysis also needed to make greater use of scenarios that are not mild, while knowledge of and choices about scenarios were often concentrated among a small number of employees despite their importance for measuring ESG-related credit risks. At the individual customer level, some credit submissions lacked analysis of ESG-related credit risks because they primarily described broader sustainability elements rather than factors affecting the customer’s business model, earnings capacity or repayment ability. The report also found a need for more concrete and operational integration of ESG-related credit risks into credit policies and procedures, more focused use of relevant ESG data, and stronger first- and second-line controls over the quality and implementation of ESG risk assessments.

The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) has published the findings of a thematic review of trading venues’ ICT risk management frameworks under the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). The review of four trading venues found that, while firms generally have extensive ICT policies and procedures in place and address many DORA requirements at a design level, further work is needed to achieve full and sustainable compliance. The AFM identified four recurring areas for improvement. DORA gap assessments were often not sufficiently granular to identify all applicable requirements or map them clearly to existing policies, procedures and controls. Core ICT risk management controls required stronger design and coverage, including the administration of ICT asset inventories and legacy systems, procedures for keeping up to date with latest technologies, logging controls, the scope and frequency of security controls, emergency change procedures, and business continuity planning and testing, including prescribed scenarios. The review also found inconsistent distinctions between policies and procedures, making it less clear whether requirements that must be set out in policies are subject to the required governance and management body approval. For trading venues using intragroup ICT service providers, DORA-related requirements were not always consistently embedded in governance arrangements or group-level documentation.

Argentina's National Securities Commission approved changes that materially broaden the securities eligible for digital representation through distributed ledger technology or similar technology. The expanded regime admits tokenization for securities issued under the automatic public offering authorization regimes, except regimes applicable to open-ended mutual funds (FCIA). It also adds exchange-traded open-ended mutual fund units (FCIA ETF units) and CEVA exchange-traded products (CEVA ETPs) to the list of eligible instruments. The changes extend tokenization to automatic authorization issuances of shares, negotiable obligations, financial trust debt securities or participation certificates, and closed-ended mutual fund units. Low-impact automatic public offerings may be tokenized only if the issuer voluntarily prepares a prospectus under the medium-impact framework and seeks authorization for digital representation. The regime continues to exclude social, green, sustainable and sustainability-linked securities, and generally excludes foreign public debt securities, except sovereign securities issued by Mercosur member states and Chile. The resolution also updates operational requirements covering registered virtual asset service providers, holders of record, specialized distributed ledger technology entities, platform interoperability, transfer restrictions, voting traceability and custody certificates. Moreover, the regulatory sandbox for the tokenization regime is extended until December 31, 2027. Digital issuances made while the regime is in force will remain valid after that date, but no further digital representations may be created under the regime after expiry unless the Commission extends or modifies it. Securities authorized for digital representation but not actually represented digitally within two years will be excluded from the regime.

The Central Bank of Barbados launched BiMPay, Barbados’ new national instant payment system, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2026. The system enables payments that previously took hours or days to settle in seconds, on a 24/7 basis, marking a key step in the modernization of Barbados’ payments infrastructure. At launch, all six commercial banks and the three largest credit unions were connected to the BiMPay rail, which replaces the automated clearing house and real-time processing systems for interbank transfers. Seven institutions were also connected to the Central Bank’s BiMPay e-wallet, which supports payments using phone numbers, email addresses or QR codes, as well as requests for payment. For the remainder of the participating institutions, e-wallet connectivity will be phased in, with Scotiabank expected to enable access within 30 days of launch and AffinityPlus Credit Union within 60 days.

The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority has published good practice guidance on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing business risk assessments (BRA) for licensed virtual asset service providers. Drawing on supervisory observations from its 2026 BRA thematic review, the paper sets out what VARA considers robust practice in building, maintaining and using a BRA as the foundation of a VASP’s financial crime framework. It also restates that, under VARA’s Compliance and Risk Management Rulebook, VASPs must maintain a BRA, review it at least every three months and update it whenever significant changes occur, with outcomes feeding directly into AML/CFT policies, procedures, systems, controls and resource allocation. The guidance focuses on the substance of a strong BRA framework. It calls for board approval and challenge, supported by a three lines of defence model that includes independent validation of methodology and control effectiveness. Methodology should be documented, transparent and repeatable, with clear treatment of inherent risk, control effectiveness, residual risk and aggregation to an overall risk view. VARA also expects BRAs to be grounded in operational data and external risk sources, to cover virtual asset specific exposures such as unhosted wallets, anonymity enhanced transactions, DeFi, cross-border transfers, stablecoins and emerging fraud typologies, and to assess proliferation financing separately from money laundering and terrorist financing with an explicit link to targeted financial sanctions controls, including screening, freezing and goAML reporting processes. The paper also stresses operationalisation and maintenance. BRA findings should drive concrete decisions such as transaction monitoring calibration, sanctions screening enhancements, enhanced due diligence measures and compliance staffing priorities. Trigger-based updates should follow developments such as new products, customer or geographic shifts, supervisory findings, sanctions events or key AML/CFT personnel changes.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission established joint data standards under the Financial Data Transparency Act of 2022 as part of a multi-agency final rule intended to promote interoperability of financial regulatory data. The standards apply at the agency level and cover data submitted to certain financial regulatory agencies, but they do not change existing reporting requirements unless agencies take further action through separate rulemakings or other actions. The joint standards establish the Legal Entity Identifier under ISO 17442 for legal entities, the Unique Product Identifier under ISO 4914 for swaps and security-based swaps, and the Classification of Financial Instruments under ISO 10962 for financial instruments that are not swaps or security-based swaps. They also set standards for dates, U.S. state and possession abbreviations, country and subdivision codes, and currency codes. The agencies did not establish the proposed Financial Instrument Global Identifier as a joint standard, did not require the Basic format option under ISO 8601 for dates, and did not establish joint standards for accounting taxonomies or census tracts. The final joint rule is effective October 1, 2026. Agency-specific standards for covered collections of information will be considered separately, with agencies retaining discretion to tailor standards, scale requirements, minimize disruption and, where appropriate, adopt standards not established in the joint rule.

The New York State Department of Financial Services proposed a regulation to align its framework for U.S. dollar-backed payment stablecoins with federal requirements under the GENIUS Act. The proposal carries forward DFS’s existing requirements on backing, redeemability, permissible reserves and independent audits, while adding provisions intended to support certification of New York’s state regime under the federal framework. The proposed rule would apply to authorized payment stablecoin issuers approved by DFS. It would set eligibility and approval requirements, restrict prohibited activities, require reserves to be held with eligible financial institutions, impose redemption policies with a two-business-day standard, and establish capital, operational backstop, Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering, sanctions, risk management, cybersecurity, examination, recordkeeping, custody and insolvency-related requirements. Issuers with USD 25 billion or more in outstanding issuance value would have to hold at least 0.5 percent of reserve assets, capped at USD 500 million, in insured deposits or insured shares. n\n The final regulation would take effect at the same time as the GENIUS Act, with a one-year transition period for existing New York-licensed issuers. DFS’s 2022 stablecoin guidance remains in effect until the regulation applies and would be withdrawn on the effective date of the new rule.

The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued updated guidance clarifying that financial institutions may use the section 314(b) information-sharing safe harbor to share information about suspected fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing and other specified unlawful activities with other eligible financial institutions. The guidance expands and replaces FinCEN’s December 2020 fact sheet and emphasizes that section 314(b) can support real-time sharing to identify illicit financial activity. Fraud-related information may be shared where a financial institution suspects the activity may involve proceeds of fraud, further or conceal a fraudulent scheme, or otherwise relate to a specified unlawful activity. Covered information may include transaction data, video surveillance footage, cyber-related data such as IP addresses and geolocations, device identification numbers, account decisions, transaction-monitoring alerts and fraud indicators such as newly added payees followed by large transfers. Information may be shared verbally, in writing or through electronic platforms, including in real time, provided participating institutions safeguard confidentiality and use the information only for permitted anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing purposes. FinCEN also clarified that the safe harbor can cover information about attempted transactions or attempts to induce transactions, and that a registered institution may share information even if it does not know whether it relates to a specific customer, account or transaction of the recipient. Section 314(b) does not permit sharing suspicious activity reports or revealing their existence, although institutions collaborating under section 314(b) may consider filing joint suspicious activity reports where permitted.

The Canadian Securities Administrators adopted final amendments to the principal distributor model for mutual fund securities, clarifying that a dealer may act as principal distributor, i.e. a dealer that has an exclusive right, or a major competitive advantage, in selling a mutual fund, only for mutual funds in the same mutual fund family. The dealer can still sell funds from other fund families in the ordinary way, without acting as their principal distributor. The amendments also require disclosure of principal distributor arrangements and related compensation, and close a gap by ensuring the deferred sales charge option is not available for mutual fund securities distributed by principal distributors. The disclosure requirements apply to the prospectus, Fund Facts document and annual report on charges and other compensation. The amendments also prohibit a principal distributor from providing incentives to representatives to recommend one mutual fund over another within the same mutual fund family, and repeal the commission rebate provision tied to deferred sales charge transactions. Subject to required ministerial approvals, most changes take effect on October 1, 2026, while the annual compensation reporting changes take effect on January 1, 2027.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has proposed amendments to Regulation 40.11 and a new Appendix F to Part 40 to clarify how it would review event contracts listed by CFTC-registered prediction markets. The proposal would establish a structured framework for determining whether an event contract involves an activity enumerated in Section 5c(c)(5)(C) of the Commodity Exchange Act, namely unlawful activity, terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or similar activity, and whether the contract is contrary to the public interest. The framework would define when an event contract “involves” an enumerated activity, introduce a definition of “gaming,” and set out public interest factors focused on price discovery and information aggregation, market integrity, settlement reliability, misuse of non-public information, and the ability of a registered entity to supervise the contract. The CFTC would also apply activity-specific factors, including stricter treatment for contracts involving terrorism, assassination, war, unlawful activity, games of random chance, player injuries, officiating decisions, discrete sports actions, physical altercations, and pre-collegiate sports. The proposal would also formalize a 90-day Commission review process, allow consolidated review of similar contracts, and clarify that contracts may continue to be listed if the Commission does not issue a contrary-to-public-interest order by the end of the review period. Comments are due by July 27, 2026.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission published a proposed rule to amend its whistleblower rules for smaller award determinations. Under the proposal, where 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected in covered and related enforcement actions would result in a whistleblower award of USD 5 million or less, the award would generally be set at that 30 percent statutory maximum. The proposal is modeled on Securities and Exchange Commission rule 21F-6(c) and is intended to make award processing more efficient, transparent and predictable, while further aligning the two agencies’ whistleblower programs. The proposed approach would apply only where the Commission does not reasonably expect future collections to push the 30 percent award amount above USD 5 million. It would not apply where specified negative factors are present, including culpable conduct, interference with internal compliance or reporting systems, or unreasonable reporting delay, although the Commission could waive the delay criterion in limited circumstances. The Commission would also retain discretion to set a lower award where the whistleblower’s assistance was limited or where the higher award would be inconsistent with the public interest or the objectives of the whistleblower program. The proposal would also make technical corrections to reflect the Whistleblower Office’s 2025 move to the Office of the General Counsel. Comments are due 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.