Global Regulator & Central Bank News Roundup

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has opened a consultation on replacing its 42-page sell-side research guidance with an eight-page, principles-based guide for Australian financial services licensees. The proposal would enable greater research analyst involvement in initial public offerings and other capital raisings, including input on deal selection, material due diligence issues and underwriting decisions, while requiring effective controls over conflicts of interest, inside information and research independence. The draft organizes expectations around five areas: handling inside information, managing conflicts of interest, preparing investor education reports, compliance monitoring and oversight, and the structure and funding of research teams. Key safeguards include limits on analyst participation in pitches, wall-crossing where analysts receive inside information, restrictions on corporate advisory influence, unbiased investor education reports based on prospectus information, segregation of research from advisory and sales functions, and remuneration arrangements that are not tied to corporate advisory revenue.

The Reserve Bank of India has published draft Foreign Exchange Management (Foreign Investment) Rules, 2026 for consultation, proposing to supersede the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019. The draft would establish a simplified, principle-based regime for foreign investment in the equity of eligible Indian investee entities and separate procedural foreign exchange requirements from government policy on entry routes, sectoral caps and sector-specific conditions. Investments in financial institutions established in an International Financial Services Centre would remain outside its scope. The proposal defines foreign direct investment as foreign investment of at least 10% in the equity of a company or limited liability partnership and foreign portfolio investment as a holding below 10%. It permits investment and transfers through subscriptions, purchases, gifts, pledges and specified equity swaps, introduces market-based or arm’s-length pricing requirements, and allows portfolio holdings on an Indian stock exchange that reach 10% to be reclassified as foreign direct investment if the applicable conditions are met. Investments on a non-repatriation basis would generally be exempt from these conditions, except in prohibited sectors, while compliance would rest on the foreign investor and eligible investee entity, or the transferor and transferee, as applicable. The draft also updates the direct international listing regime for Indian public companies, covering eligibility, sectoral caps, beneficial ownership, voting and pricing conditions. Offshore portfolio holdings reaching 10% would have to be divested, taking the same investor’s holdings in India into account. The Reserve Bank of India would administer the rules and operational requirements, while the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade would interpret the foreign investment policy.

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission and Securities Commission Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding that replaces their 2009 Islamic-fund arrangement, broadens the mutual recognition of funds scheme and establishes a cooperation framework for cross-listings of equity securities. The eligible product scope now extends to specified non-Islamic exchange-traded funds, leveraged and inverse products and real estate investment trusts, with qualifying funds able to use streamlined authorization, recognition or approval processes in the host market. Home regulators will retain primary supervision of covered funds and their managers, while host regulators will apply local offering, distribution, disclosure and investor-protection requirements and retain discretion to reject applications or impose additional conditions. The REIT channels include minimum market capitalization and regulatory track-record requirements, including at least HKD 3 billion for Malaysian REITs seeking a Hong Kong secondary listing and MYR 1.5 billion for Hong Kong REITs seeking a Malaysian secondary listing, generally accompanied by five full financial years of good regulatory compliance. For equity listings, the authorities will jointly develop a workflow allowing a single set of documents where an issuer seeks a simultaneous primary listing on its home exchange and a secondary listing on the host exchange. The framework also provides for regulatory consultation, issuer support and supervisory information-sharing. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong has added Bursa Malaysia Securities to its list of Recognised Stock Exchanges, and the memorandum took effect upon signature.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has proposed amendments to the External Audit and Accounting Regulations to strengthen audit quality incentives, governance and senior personnel standards at accounting firms. The measures would give high-performing mid-sized firms a route to larger listed-company audit appointments, require large firms to establish independent audit quality oversight bodies and tighten external-audit experience requirements for leaders of registered listed-company auditors. Under the revised auditor designation framework, the required capacity to compensate for audit-related losses would double across all firm groups. A Group B firm could receive special Group A status and audit listed companies with KRW 2 trillion to KRW 5 trillion in assets if its quality score reaches at least 95% of the Group A average, it ranks within the top 20% of Group B and it maintains compensation capacity of at least 150% of the Group B requirement. Auditor-designation scores would also include audit quality deductions of up to 10%, alongside the existing maximum 10% bonus, and would be assessed relative to other firms in the same group. Group A firms would have to establish an Audit Quality Oversight Committee with a majority of independent external experts, including the chair, to monitor management decisions that could prioritize profitability over audit quality. Chief executives of registered listed-company auditors would need at least seven years of external-audit experience, while directors responsible for quality control would need at least five years.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, Thailand has launched a consultation on draft rules to permit transition bonds and Thailand amber bonds and strengthen disclosure requirements across ESG bonds. Transition bonds would finance activities under internationally recognized transition standards, while Thailand amber bonds would finance amber activities aligned with the Thailand Taxonomy, including compliance with Do No Significant Harm and Minimum Social Safeguards criteria. For public offerings, offerings to high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth investors, and crowdfunding offerings involving retail investors, issuers would have to prepare a framework and appoint an external review provider. Pre-offer disclosures would cover the use of proceeds, project evaluation and selection, proceeds management, reporting arrangements, the review provider’s qualifications and scope, and its opinion on alignment with the referenced standard or taxonomy. Issuers would also face restrictions on changing the use of proceeds, annual allocation and project reporting until funds are fully allocated or the bonds mature, and event-driven reporting of material project developments through maturity. Fact sheets for taxonomy-referencing bonds would have to disclose the risk that assessment thresholds may tighten and that financed activities may cease to meet the taxonomy during the life of the bonds. The drafts would also require frameworks and external reviews for existing use-of-proceeds ESG bonds, require frameworks for sustainability-linked bonds, remove the duty to report changes in a sustainability-linked bond’s external review provider, and allow crowdfunding sustainability-linked bonds to use other financial payoffs, such as one-time payments, in addition to interest-rate adjustments.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has signed a memorandum of understanding with BOT to strengthen cooperation on cybersecurity and digital fraud risks affecting the financial sector. The arrangement focuses on closer cross-border coordination in three areas: sharing regulatory and incident updates and threat intelligence, building technical capability, and improving operational preparedness. Under the memorandum, the authorities will exchange information on cyber and fraud developments relevant to financial institutions, carry out joint staff training, study visits and research and policy exchanges, and conduct cross-border cybersecurity and crisis management exercises.

The Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) has finalised draft implementing technical standards governing how it will work with national AML/CFT financial supervisors to select and directly supervise certain high-risk cross-border financial-sector entities from 2028. Eligible entities are credit institutions, financial institutions and groups operating in at least six EU Member States. National supervisors will collect and validate the required data, while AMLA will conduct the risk assessment and make the final selection. The selection framework follows a sequential and proportionate approach. Detailed risk data will be collected only from entities identified as provisionally eligible, while national supervisors may exempt firms that can be shown to be ineligible using objective, available, credible and verifiable information. AMLA must notify selected entities of the outcome and their review and appeal rights before publishing the final list. When supervisory responsibility moves between AMLA and national supervisors, the transferring authority must provide a secure, documented handover covering at least three years of supervisory history. Pending procedures and investigations will be allocated case by case to preserve supervisory continuity. Each selected entity will be overseen by a joint supervisory team comprising AMLA staff and relevant national supervisory staff. The standards require equal access to information within each team and rotation of the AMLA coordinator. The draft standards will now be submitted to the European Commission for adoption and, once adopted, will govern the data collection and selection process ahead of the start of direct supervision in 2028.

The European Banking Authority has launched four consultations on draft measures implementing the revised Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive, covering depositor communications, operational information exchange, payouts of client funds deposits and investment of deposit guarantee scheme funds. The package would standardise the information and data needed to identify and reimburse protected depositors, improve transparency over scheme resources and interventions, and ensure that industry-funded resources remain sufficiently liquid for payouts, resolution and other permitted measures. The depositor information standards would introduce a redesigned, data-extractable information sheet highlighting the EUR 100,000 protection limit and seven-working-day payout period, while setting communication requirements for bank failures, client funds, reimbursement suspensions, mergers and changes in scheme membership. Separate information-exchange standards would require credit institutions to provide minimum depositor and deposit data, including indicators for cross-border deposits, client funds, money laundering and terrorist financing cases, and restrictive measures, within a deadline set by the relevant scheme and capped at three working days. They would also support consolidated EBA reporting on covered deposits, available financial means and the use of scheme funds. For client funds held by payment institutions, e-money institutions and investment firms, credit institutions would have to secure accurate client-level data through contractual arrangements or national law and transmit it in encrypted, machine-readable form for stress testing and payouts. Repayment to the account holder would be the default, with direct payment to clients required where their protection could otherwise be compromised, alongside coordination controls to prevent duplicate claims. The investment guidelines would require a formal strategy, risk-based diversification, liquidity-led selection of low-risk assets, portfolio stress testing and contingency funding mechanisms where assets cannot be converted into cash within the applicable intervention deadline.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has set out key deadlines and action points for the European Union’s transition to a T+1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. It called on market participants to accelerate implementation during 2026, noting that industry surveys show uneven progress across markets, sectors and firms despite increasing awareness of the transition. Firms must meet the first regulatory deadline on 7 December 2026, when requirements take effect to improve the timing of allocations and confirmations and make international communication standards the default. By 11 October 2027, firms must optimise settlement processes, including sending instructions to securities settlement systems early enough and supporting broader use of central securities depository functions such as auto-partial settlement, hold and release, and auto-collateralisation. ESMA and national competent authorities are finalising Level 3 guidance to promote a common understanding of the revised requirements without creating new obligations. Firms should automate and standardise processes, ensure timely and accurate data, and test readiness across clients, brokers, custodians, infrastructures, vendors and outsourcing providers. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has published a harmonised implementation guide for corporate events in a T+1 settlement environment, providing detailed operational rules for market stakeholders in AMI-SeCo markets. The guide complements the T+1 High-Level Roadmap issued by the EU T+1 Industry Committee and focuses on how corporate events should be handled once the settlement cycle shortens, especially where unsettled transactions affect who is entitled to proceeds or how pending instructions should be adjusted. The guide standardises key date sequencing across the main event types. It also sets transaction management rules for market claims, transformations and buyer protection, including when central securities depositories or, where relevant, central counterparties must create claims or transform pending transactions, the use of a 10 business day post-record-date or post-market-deadline processing window, and the treatment of holds, matching, partial settlement and fractions. For the transition to T+1, issuers are generally advised not to announce corporate events with key dates falling between 4 October 2027 and 15 October 2027, with specific ex-date treatment set out if events during that period cannot be avoided.

The European Central Bank has appointed Boris Kisselevsky, currently head of its Representative Office in the House of the Euro in Brussels, as Director General Secretariat, effective 1 November 2026. In his role, he will lead the Directorate General Secretariat’s strategic direction, oversee staff across its three divisions and represent the ECB on internal and external committees and at high-level fora, supporting the ECB's sdecision-making, knowledge sharing, governance and administration. He succeeds Petra Senkovic, who will move to the role of Director General Legal Services. Kisselevsky, who holds degrees in law and business administration, has led the ECB’s Brussels office since 2017, where he has maintained key contacts with European Union institutions, advised ECB decision-makers on developments and supported Executive Board and Supervisory Board members on missions in Brussels. He also served as an economist at the Bank of France as well as was previously seconded to the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of Russia.

The Financial Conduct Authority has named the second cohort of firms for its Supercharged Sandbox and said Anthropic will support the group by providing access to Claude, including Claude Code and Claude Cowork. The controlled testing environment is designed to let firms experiment with advanced artificial intelligence safely, and the 21 selected organisations will use it to develop and test applications across payments, fraud prevention, governance, financial inclusion, and compliance automation. The FCA also launched Agentic Academy, a 10-week specialist AI programme for selected firms delivered with the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship. The second cohort includes 21 organisations, among them Scottish Widows, Money Advice Trust and TrueLayer. Their projects will explore use cases such as safer agent-led payments and commerce, stronger fraud and economic crime detection, improved AI governance and accountability, broader access for vulnerable and underserved consumers, and more efficient compliance and business processes. Demand increased from the first round, with 199 applications compared with 132 previously, a 51% rise. The sandbox continues to build on NayaOne infrastructure and NVIDIA support, with second-cohort firms retaining access to accelerated computing infrastructure and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software.

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission has issued guidance clarifying how its existing technology-neutral framework applies to tokenised funds, securities and real-world assets, while revising its position with immediate effect to permit public as well as private distributed ledger technology for fund tokenisation. Registers of interests in Guernsey funds and issued securities may be maintained on-chain, with tokens representing ownership. Guernsey law does not require a parallel off-chain register where company or partnership records are natively issued and maintained on a blockchain. The guidance applies the principle of same activity, same risk, same regulatory outcome and does not cover stablecoins. Tokenisation does not change the underlying regulatory obligations. Tokenised funds remain subject to existing requirements on custody, asset segregation, record keeping, safeguarding and financial crime controls, and the licensed Designated Administrator retains responsibility where administration or records use distributed ledger technology or third-party providers. Tokens with the features of Category 2 controlled investments are regulated as securities under the Protection of Investors Law, including applicable licensing and prospectus requirements. A token used solely to represent an investor’s interest in a registered or authorised fund is not a virtual asset under the Lending, Credit and Finance Law. Native or direct tokenisation of real-world assets may fall within the virtual asset service provider regime depending on the services provided, while blended or multi-asset tokens may be treated as collective investment schemes where their structure has those characteristics. Firms must maintain proportionate control frameworks for legal, operational, technology, cyber, outsourcing and concentration risks, and disclose tokenisation-specific risks that directly affect investors under existing disclosure requirements. The Commission has added tokenisation questions to fund returns and applications and will introduce annual reporting for fiduciary licensees servicing tokenised structures, with further detail to follow. Firms considering native direct tokenisation or blended structures are encouraged to engage with the Commission at an early stage.

Bank of Italy has announced that the TIPS Clone platform for instant payment settlement has gone live and is now available to Western Balkan countries. The new infrastructure, developed by Bank of Italy, allows real-time settlement of instant payments in participating countries' currencies in central bank money and in euro in commercial bank money. The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Central Bank of Montenegro are the first institutions to connect. The platform uses the same technology as TARGET Instant Payment Settlement, the Eurosystem instant payments infrastructure operated by Bank of Italy, while remaining a standalone system. This gives participating central banks access to the functionalities already available in TIPS, with future Eurosystem developments and innovations also expected to be incorporated. The initiative was launched by Bank of Italy with support from the European Central Bank and the Eurosystem as part of wider cooperation with the Western Balkans. A second onboarding window is scheduled for November 2026, when the central banks of Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia are expected to join, which would bring all countries participating in the initiative onto the platform.

The Office of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority has issued recommendations calling on financial market entities to reassess ICT risk management and operational resilience for a threat environment in which frontier AI could accelerate vulnerability discovery, automate offensive activity and sharply reduce the time available to analyze and remediate weaknesses. The recommendations call for AI-enabled attack scenarios to be reflected in ICT risk management, resilience testing, third-party oversight and incident analysis. Entities should promptly assess the impact on their risk profile and establish a proportionate action plan covering measures, resources, responsibilities and implementation timing. Near-term priorities include faster, risk-based vulnerability and patch management at scale, stronger monitoring and detection supported by evidence that controls operate effectively, reassessment of ICT supply chain risk, and enhanced protection for internet-facing infrastructure, third-party software and open source components. Vulnerability priorities should go beyond technical severity scores such as the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and incorporate threat intelligence, active exploitation, critical function impact and dependencies across assets, business processes and ICT providers. The recommendations also call for an active role of the board. Notably, boards should treat cyber risk as a business risk, evaluate the impact of frontier AI and ensure adequate resources. The Office expects entities to take the necessary measures and will assess the adequacy and effectiveness of implementation through ongoing supervision and inspections.

The Central Bank of Ireland has commissioned an independent review of the effectiveness and efficiency of its enforcement activities. Governor Gabriel Makhlouf decided to initiate the review against a backdrop of a larger, more complex and more interconnected financial system, as well as significant changes over the past decade in the regulatory and legislative framework and in the Central Bank’s own approach to regulation, supervision and enforcement. The review will be led by Josephine Feehily, former chair of the Revenue Commissioners and the first chair of the Policing Authority. It will assess the performance of the Central Bank’s enforcement work and how enforcement operates within the wider supervisory framework. The scope includes enforcement structures and decision-making processes, case-selection criteria, timeliness, and transparency for the public, firms and individuals affected. It will also consider best practice among comparable regulators in Ireland and abroad, along with relevant international standards and principles. To support the exercise, Feehily will engage with senior management and staff across the Central Bank and with external stakeholders where necessary. The exercise will conclude with a report containing recommendations for submission to the governor.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has launched a consultation on proposed guidance for the controlled use of recognised stablecoins by BMA-regulated investment funds, limited-purpose insurers, insurance-linked securities funds, insurance managers and intermediaries. The framework would operate through existing licensing, business plan, disclosure and supervisory processes, with commercial insurers outside its scope. Recognition would not make a stablecoin equivalent to fiat currency, legal tender, a bank deposit or cash for accounting, solvency or regulatory capital purposes. Eligible stablecoins would need to be fiat-pegged, redeemable at par by no later than the close of the next business day under normal and stressed conditions, fully backed one-for-one by segregated cash or cash equivalents, and subject to at least monthly independent reserve attestation. Permitted uses could include fund subscriptions and redemptions, treasury and settlement, premiums and claims, approved capital or surplus support and certain parametric or digitally enabled insurance arrangements. Entities would need board-approved controls covering governance, custody and wallets, anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing, sanctions, valuation, disclosures, settlement finality, stress testing, technology risk and fiat fallback. Speculative activity, staking, lending, unsecured decentralised finance, rehypothecation and leverage would be excluded. For limited-purpose insurers, recognised stablecoin exposure would generally be expected to remain within 25% of total statutory capital and surplus or net assets unless a higher level is approved. Traditional special purpose insurer collateral structures would remain fiat-based, requiring fund-level stablecoins to be converted before deployment unless otherwise considered. Eligible entities should engage the Authority early through the applicable supervisory route.

The Central Bank of Uruguay’s Superintendency of Financial Services approved a licensing and supervisory framework for legal entities that professionally provide virtual asset exchange, transfer, custody or administration services, or financial services linked to an issuer’s offer or sale of virtual assets. The regime also covers services provided directly between users through smart contract protocols. It excludes passive software development, activities already governed by specific legal regimes, and services limited to non-fungible tokens unless those assets are used for payment, investment or as a digital representation of a security. Providers must obtain prior authorization and comply with governance, conduct, disclosure, anti money laundering, cybersecurity, outsourcing, audit and reporting requirements. They must keep client money and virtual assets separate from their own assets, may not use assets under custody without the client’s express authorization, and may not conduct financial intermediation with virtual assets. Custody and administration providers must maintain minimum equity of UI 1 million. All providers must also maintain a UI 600,000 guarantee and a UI 50,000 demand deposit with the central bank. Transactions through automated terminals are capped at USD 1,000 per client per day, remote transfers to third parties require two-factor authentication, and virtual asset transfers are subject to originator and beneficiary information requirements. Applications may be submitted from Sept. 1, 2026. Existing providers may continue operating while their applications are processed if they apply by March 31, 2027. The general compliance deadline is June 30, 2027.

The Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted its 2026-2028 Open Data Plan, which will expand its existing portfolio of 54 open datasets through eight phased releases and introduce automated public access through an application programming interface. The datasets were selected following public consultation and technical, legal and operational assessments, including checks on data protection, confidentiality, extraction feasibility and system maturity. The first releases, due by December 31, 2026, are a consolidated registry of regulated entities, information on public offerings conducted through crowdfunding platforms and metadata for electronic administrative processes and documents. These datasets are intended to support verification of authorized market participants, monitoring of offerings and easier access to information on the authority’s administrative activities. Further releases will cover FIAGRO annual reports and securitization company registration information by June 30, 2027, monthly and semiannual information on non-resident investors by December 31, 2027, and portfolio managers’ reference forms by June 30, 2028. The plan assigns daily updates to the first three datasets and securitization registrations, and weekly updates to the remaining datasets.

The Central Bank of the UAE has begun the nationwide rollout of Jaywan, the UAE’s first national card scheme. Banks, licensed financial institutions and exchange houses will issue the cards in phases over the coming months, making them available to consumers across the country. Jaywan cards can be used for contactless payments, online purchases and cash withdrawals through point-of-sale terminals, e-commerce platforms, automated teller machines and digital wallets. They also support domestic and international transactions under applicable rules and regulations. Cardholders will have access to rewards and offers across the travel, retail, hospitality and lifestyle sectors.

United States House Committee on Financial Services Republicans has published a framework for coordinated action against financial fraud and scams, proposing a whole-of-ecosystem framework to combat financial fraud and scams. It calls for a unified federal strategy linking agencies, law enforcement and private sector participants, with consolidated complaint reporting, stronger cross-sector information sharing, more coordinated enforcement and greater emphasis on recovering stolen funds. The report cites more than 3 million fraud reports and USD 15.9 billion in reported losses in 2025, and estimates that actual losses may be closer to USD 200 billion because most incidents go unreported. The report identifies investment scams and imposter scams as accounting for more than 70% of reported losses, and describes AI, faster payment methods, digital assets, social media, messaging platforms and transnational scam centers as major enablers. It finds that fragmented federal reporting, inconsistent terminology, limited real-time data sharing, uneven investigative thresholds and regulatory constraints on financial institutions hinder prevention and enforcement. The distinction between unauthorized fraud and authorized scams also affects consumer reimbursement and institutional liability, while rapid payment execution often leaves little time to block or recover funds. Key recommendations include coordinated interagency task forces, targeted sanctions against overseas operators and facilitators, a cohesive national reporting system, stronger prosecution, advertiser verification and faster removal of fraudulent content. Congress and regulators are urged to provide clearer legal pathways for cross-sector information sharing and targeted flexibility for financial institutions to delay funds availability or redemptions where credible fraud indicators exist. The framework also calls for wider use of AI and advanced detection tools, specialized state financial crime centers, updated digital asset safeguards and a unified national consumer education campaign.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester M. Peirce issued a statement emphasizing that moving asset deployment activities onchain does not, by itself, place them outside the federal securities laws. Crypto vaults and lending strategies may fall within the securities perimeter depending on their specific structure, activities and management arrangements, although not every such arrangement will be subject to SEC jurisdiction. Vaults range from fully programmatic allocations governed by immutable smart contracts to structures in which a person or group exercises discretion over investment decisions. Depending on their design, they may involve an investment contract, an investment company or an arrangement resembling a separately managed account. Onchain lending may also raise securities law issues where loans have the characteristics of notes that are securities. Parties that manage vaults or lending strategies may separately face investment adviser considerations. Peirce invited market participants to engage with the SEC on whether their activities fall within its regulatory scope and, where they do, how to pursue a compliant path. She also requested input on whether SEC rules should be modified to accommodate vaults, onchain lending and other innovations while protecting investors and supporting fair, orderly and efficient markets and capital formation.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Market Oversight issued an advisory directing designated contract markets not to submit broad, template-style self-certifications for event contract series under Commission Regulation § 40.2(a). Such filings can obscure the terms of individual contract variations and prevent an adequate assessment of settlement methodologies, data sources and compliance with the Commission’s core principles. Event contract series should instead be filed as qualifying classes under § 40.2(d), submitted for approval under § 40.3 or certified individually under § 40.2(a). To qualify for class certification under § 40.2(d), every contract in the series must use identical pricing sources, formulas, procedures and methodologies for calculating reference prices and payment obligations. The filing must also reference a specific contract previously certified or approved by the same designated contract market, rather than an earlier broad template. Settlement sources must be specifically identified, enabling the market to assess manipulation risks and the reliability, commercial acceptability, public availability and timeliness of the data used for cash settlement. Designated contract markets may continue using the Commission’s consolidated submission functionality to file common supporting documents once, provided each contract is certified individually or as part of a qualifying class and the submission contains all required information. The Division may recommend staying a listing or require the withdrawal and resubmission of some or all contracts where a certification is inadequate, and it encourages pre-filing engagement where a proposed series raises novel questions.

The Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments published the 2026 independent evaluation of its banking and investment complaint operations, together with its response. The review found that OBSI met its obligations under the Bank Act and its memorandum of understanding with the Canadian Securities Administrators, and assessed its processes as sound and well managed. It nevertheless made 26 recommendations to strengthen OBSI’s authority, procedural fairness, timeliness, transparency and operational capacity as complaint volumes continue to grow. The principal recommendations would give OBSI binding authority over all complaints and raise its compensation limit from CAD 350,000 to CAD 550,000, followed by automatic inflation indexation and periodic structural review. Other jurisdictional and fairness measures include restricting firms from pursuing parallel litigation during an active complaint, applying the 180-day and six-year filing rules with greater regard to vulnerability and individual circumstances, and reviewing whether complaint decisions adequately reflect consumer protection legislation. The review also called for greater disclosure to complainants, including sharing key firm documents and written preliminary settlement proposals, generally conducting complainant interviews, strengthening credibility assessments, providing fuller reasons in closing and reconsideration letters, and considering non-cash remedies where these would better restore the complainant’s position. Operational recommendations include a 30-day target for assigning complaints to investigators, broader reporting of total complaint-handling time, and stronger identification and escalation of potential systemic issues, including where a single investment complaint may indicate a wider problem. OBSI should also publish anonymized summaries of non-banking recommendations, expand annual reporting on complaint trends and systemic issues, complete its loss calculation methodology work by the end of 2026, update investigator guidance and IT systems, and strengthen communication about efficiency and costs. OBSI supported or generally supported most recommendations and plans to address several through proposed Rules and Operating Guidance and enhanced annual reporting. Binding authority and the higher compensation limit require regulatory or government support, while OBSI proposes conducting the recommended external review of reconsiderations in 2028 rather than mid-2027.

The Canadian Securities Administrators is consulting on amendments that would codify the higher capital raising limits currently available under the listed issuer financing exemption and streamline its eligibility, liquidity and disclosure conditions. Eligible exchange-listed reporting issuers would be able to raise the greater of CAD 25 million and 20% of the aggregate market value of their listed equity securities, capped at CAD 50 million during a 12-month period, without a prospectus and subject to the exemption’s conditions. The proposal would revise the calculation of the 50% dilution limit and exclude warrants that cannot be exercised within 60 days after closing, while retaining restrictions that prevent an offering from creating a new control person or conferring sufficient voting power to elect a majority of directors. It would also extend the exemption to qualifying successor issuers and replace the requirement to fund business objectives and liquidity needs for 12 months with a requirement to meet short-term liquidity needs. Enhanced financial condition disclosure would apply where an issuer has going-concern uncertainties or has experienced a deterioration that could result in such uncertainties. Other changes would extend the offering closing period from 45 to 60 days, permit offering prices to be omitted temporarily in marketed offerings under specified conditions and introduce an 18-month certificate lookback period. The Canadian Securities Administrators cited increased use following the 2025 blanket order, with 349 issuers raising CAD 3.7 billion during the following year and 40 issuers raising more than CAD 25 million. The capital-raising pace was eight times higher than under the original limits.