Global Regulator & Central Bank News Roundup

The New Zealand Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has launched an exploratory thematic review of how artificial intelligence is being developed, supplied and used across the financial advice sector. The review will build an evidence base on current and emerging practices, associated benefits and risks, and the legal, operational and regulatory issues that arise when AI supports or shapes financial advice. It is not a formal compliance or enforcement exercise. The review covers client-facing and advice-influencing applications, as well as supporting functions that could materially affect advice quality, suitability, disclosure, record-keeping, oversight, competency and consumer outcomes. It will examine governance and accountability, system design and monitoring, human oversight, evidence of suitability, transparency and regulatory boundaries. The FMA is seeking input through four targeted surveys for financial advice providers and advisers, technology service providers, legal advisers, and industry and consumer stakeholders. Responses are due by 4 September 2026.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has launched a consultation on extending its existing relief from pre-lodgement advertising and publicity restrictions for offers of unquoted securities, including initial public offerings. The proposal would allow offerors to advertise or make public statements at any stage before lodging a disclosure document, subject to prescribed notices that reinforce the disclosure document as the primary basis for investment decisions. Advertisements would have to identify the issuer and, where relevant, the seller; state that a disclosure document will be available when the securities are offered; indicate when and where it is expected to be available; direct prospective investors to consider it; and explain that applications must use the accompanying application form. The framework is intended to give offerors greater scope to communicate with the market, gauge investor interest and correct inaccurate information, while aligning the regime more closely with other domestic fundraising frameworks and comparable overseas approaches. As part of the broader simplification of the framework, the proposed instrument would absorb the limited relief currently provided under ASIC Instrument 2020/722 for communications with employees and existing security holders. ASIC therefore proposes to revoke that instrument, while retaining the separate relief for market research and roadshows. Feedback is due by 11 September 2026, with the final legislative instrument and updated Regulatory Guide 254 planned for release on 30 October 2026.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has launched a refreshed Small Business Strategy and a new Small Business Director Essentials hub, combining a broader regulatory approach with practical digital resources to help small business directors understand and meet their obligations. The strategy focuses ASIC’s work on four areas: educating directors, simplifying interactions and regulatory processes, strengthening engagement and coordination, and taking targeted regulatory and enforcement action against misconduct affecting small businesses. The new hub implements a key initiative under the strategy and ASIC’s regulatory simplification program. It brings together practical guidance, learning modules and tools covering key stages of running a company, from planning and establishment through operation, financial difficulty, restructuring and closure, including a director roadmap and free online learning modules. ASIC developed the resources following research involving 400 small business directors, which identified time and resource constraints and regulatory complexity as the most common barriers to meeting director obligations, both cited by 49% of respondents. The cost of professional advice was cited by 44%, while 22% had never accessed information or sought advice about their director obligations from any source.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has adopted a more targeted, risk-based approach to inspections of market intermediaries from financial year 2026-27, including joint inspections of stock brokers and depository participants by stock exchanges and depositories. SEBI has reduced its targeted number of inspections to approximately one-third of the previous financial year's level and is discontinuing repetitive annual comprehensive inspections of compliant entities, particularly Qualified Stock Brokers. Entities that repeatedly meet shortlisting parameters, have high risk scores or trigger multiple exchange alerts will receive priority. Shortlisting will take place quarterly, with greater weight given to recent potential violations identified through exchange alerts, complaints and social media. Where feasible, SEBI departments will jointly inspect entities holding multiple intermediary registrations to reduce inspection visits. Market intelligence and referrals will also inform inspections, including those relating to technical glitches, cyber incidents and Authorised Persons of stock brokers.

South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) has brought into effect revised anti-vishing rules that establish a legal framework for financial companies, telecom service providers and investigation authorities to share suspicious financial, communications and investigative information through the AI-based Anti-Phishing Sharing and Analysis Platform (ASAP). The framework allows covered entities to provide information to the platform operator without obtaining individual consent from the data subject and to use information supplied by other participating organizations and ASAP analysis for measures including blocking suspected criminal phone numbers and supporting investigations. The expanded framework covers information on accounts and transactions linked or suspected to be linked to fraud, account holders, suspected phone numbers and users, malicious apps and suspicious transactions detected by financial companies. Participating entities extend beyond financial companies to telecom providers, investigation authorities, the Financial Supervisory Service, Korea Financial Intelligence Unit, prepaid service providers, virtual asset exchanges and the Korea Association for ICT Promotion. The revised rules also establish exemptions from legal restrictions that could impede rapid information sharing, alongside requirements governing the retention, deletion and handling of personal data. The Financial Services Commission designated the Financial Security Institute as the information sharing and analysis agency operating ASAP. System connections with telecom providers and investigation authorities were completed before the revised rules took effect, enabling the expanded information-sharing arrangements to begin immediately.

The European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) have published a final report with draft regulatory technical standards that would extend the initial margin exemption to existing non-centrally cleared over-the-counter derivative contracts when either counterparty falls below the EUR 8 billion aggregate month-end average notional amount threshold. Initial margin already collected for outstanding contracts could be released, removing the need to maintain margining and custodial arrangements solely for legacy trades and aligning EU treatment more closely with other jurisdictions. Where a counterparty’s aggregate month-end average notional amount for March, April and May is below the threshold, the exemption could be implemented as early as June 1 of that year, although counterparties could delay its application or continue collecting initial margin. If both counterparties exceed the threshold, initial margin requirements would apply to new contracts no later than January 1 of the following year. The draft standards would also remove outdated transitional arrangements for single stock options and equity index options, which remain exempt from margin requirements under EMIR 3.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has proposed a recurring reporting framework for financial and non-financial counterparties that must seek authorisation to use an initial margin model based on the International Swaps and Derivatives Association Standard Initial Margin Model (ISDA SIMM). The framework would provide standardised information for the EBA’s central validation and ongoing monitoring of the pro forma model under EMIR, support competent authorities’ authorisation and supervision of counterparties’ local model implementation, and supply the inputs needed to calculate annual validation fees. The EBA plans to share relevant reported information with competent authorities. The proposed templates cover three main areas: the scale and composition of OTC derivatives activity subject to initial margin, information used to calculate validation fees, and indicators of ISDA SIMM’s use and performance. The performance data would include formal margin disputes, adjustments or add-ons to model outputs, significant or systematic cases where the model is not used, risks not covered by SIMM and back-testing results. The EBA also proposes using established identifiers, including the collateral portfolio indicator or Unique Trade Identifier, to link granular information on margined portfolios with EMIR trade repository data where possible. Reporting would be proportionate to an entity’s OTC trading activity. Entities classified as having significant OTC trading activities would submit the comprehensive dataset quarterly, except for the annual fee template. Other entities would report only limited activity information and fee inputs annually. Significant entities would be identified through a two-step test comprising a group-level monthly average outstanding notional amount of at least EUR 750 billion and an individual-level activity criterion, including a quantitative threshold that the EBA intends to calibrate using 2026 fee data. The consultation also seeks views on several unresolved design choices, including the individual threshold, whether fee reporting should use equivalent notional amounts or more granular initial margin data, and whether disputes and adjustments should be reported through a combination of aggregate and granular templates or entirely at granular level.

The European Banking Federation, Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe, Connect Europe and UNI Europa have published a joint assessment of GenAI’s technological, economic, social, ethical and regulatory effects across the EU audiovisual, banking and telecommunications sectors. The report finds that GenAI can improve efficiency, support new services and shift workers towards higher-value tasks, but that productivity gains remain uneven and in some cases unproven at scale. It identifies job displacement, unequal access to training, hallucinations, bias, privacy risks, copyright concerns, legal uncertainty and disproportionate accountability for workers as the main constraints on fair and sustainable adoption. The report recommends that organisations base deployment on meaningful human oversight, clearly allocated responsibilities and procedures for identifying, correcting and learning from biased or inaccurate outputs. Companies should establish transparent governance and feedback mechanisms, use interdisciplinary teams combining technical, ethical and sector expertise, and engage employees and trade unions before GenAI is scaled rather than after deployment. Workforce measures should include structured upskilling and reskilling frameworks based on AI literacy assessments, clear delivery models and evaluation of outcomes, with workers given adequate time and resources to participate. Trade unions and public authorities should support these measures through governance, funding and compliance incentives, while the capacity of worker representatives to negotiate GenAI-related changes should be strengthened. Sector-specific priorities include stronger transparency and enforcement around intellectual property, consent, attribution and synthetic content in audiovisual services; robust data governance, continuous bias monitoring, explainability and human control in sensitive banking uses such as creditworthiness and human resources; and stronger cybersecurity, privacy, fairness controls and regulatory literacy in telecommunications. The report also supports safe testing environments such as sandboxes or incubators, clearer liability arrangements and regulatory approaches that preserve safeguards while avoiding unnecessary duplication.

The European Central Bank (ECB) published a working paper examining model risk in internal ratings-based credit-risk models using confidential supervisory data from 267 internal model inspections conducted across the Single Supervisory Mechanism between 2014 and 2020. The study finds that the severity of model deficiencies, rather than their number, explains most of the risk-weighted asset impact of supervisory limitations, which require banks to hold higher risk-weighted assets until non-compliance is remediated. The associated additional Common Equity Tier 1 capital was in the double-digit billions of EUR. Only findings in the highest severity category were statistically significant drivers of the size of limitations. These findings were linked mainly to non-compliance with Capital Requirements Regulation provisions governing the quality and handling of data used to calibrate internal models, identifying weak data governance as a key channel through which models may underestimate risk. The results remained robust to alternative outlier treatments, possible reverse causality and changes associated with the Targeted Review of Internal Models. The paper concludes that supervisors could use resources more efficiently by prioritizing material data governance deficiencies and applying a more tailored, risk-sensitive approach when calibrating and following up on supervisory limitations.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye selected 23 projects from 12 banks and six payment and electronic money institutions to enter the third stage of its Digital Turkish Lira Project Ecosystem. The projects will proceed to development activities and sandbox testing, while six additional projects have been placed on hold and may be admitted at a later date. The three-stage process initially attracted 85 project applications from 16 banks and 25 payment and electronic money institutions, with participating applicants also able to collaborate with financial technology companies. Of these, 51 advanced beyond the first evaluation stage. The 23 selected projects cover overlapping use cases, including 17 in programmable payments, 15 each in tokenization and interoperability with existing systems, seven in self-sovereign identity and one in machine-to-machine payments.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched an Application Programming Interface for its Handbook, giving firms, developers and technology providers direct access to structured, machine-readable versions of its rules, guidance and standards. The free service provides an alternative to accessing Handbook information through the website, monthly downloads or specialist compliance tools and is designed to make regulatory content easier to integrate into firms’ existing systems and compliance processes. Firms can connect to the API through their own technology or rely on RegTech and other third-party providers. The API can support compliance monitoring, regulatory and policy change management and other RegTech applications. Potential uses include mapping rules to products, activities and customer journeys, comparing and flagging rule changes, and providing authoritative Handbook data for compliance tools and AI applications. It automatically extracts content from the latest version of the Handbook, giving users access to current information as well as future versions of Handbook content. Access is available to users registered for a free Handbook website account.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has finalised rules to streamline the United Kingdom's transaction reporting regime, removing duplicative or low-value requirements while preserving data used for market abuse surveillance, market monitoring and supervision. The reforms are expected to save firms more than GBP 100 million a year and affect investment firms, trading venue operators, approved reporting mechanisms and other market participants submitting transaction reports, instrument reference data and order book data. The regime will reduce transaction reporting fields from 65 to 52, remove foreign exchange derivatives from scope, exclude about 7 million financial instruments traded only on European Union venues and shorten the default back-reporting period from five to three years, reducing required resubmissions by one-third. It will also exempt most corporate actions, simplify reporting by trading venues and introduce an optional Conditional Single-Sided Reporting framework. Removing European Union venue-only instruments is expected to save firms about GBP 32 million annually, while the foreign exchange derivatives change will reduce costs for more than 400 UK firms. The new regime will take effect on 3 April 2028. The FCA will publish a draft schema, validation rules and new guidelines in October 2026 as part of a Transaction Reporting User Pack, while applying supervisory flexibility in specified areas during the implementation period.

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has published its Financial Crime Compliance Strategy 2026, establishing a broader framework for addressing financial crime across the financial services sector and embedding financial crime compliance throughout authorisation, supervision and enforcement. The strategy expands the authority’s focus beyond anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing to a wider range of interconnected financial crime risks, while aligning its approach with the European Union’s new anti-money laundering framework and the Anti-Money Laundering Authority. The framework is organised around six pillars covering risk-based supervision, outcomes-based supervision, oversight across authorised entities’ full lifecycle, streamlined regulatory oversight, coordination and collaboration, and industry outreach. Supervisory resources will be directed toward higher-risk sectors and entities, with information from the Digital Operational Resilience Act, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation and prudential supervision used to identify control weaknesses and warning signals. The authority will assess firms’ anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing arrangements from authorisation onward, conduct follow-up reviews to test whether supervisory interventions have improved outcomes, and take proportionate action where governance, oversight or internal controls fall short. The authority will continue publishing risk-based guidance, strengthen information sharing and shared supervisory tools with domestic bodies, and contribute to Anti-Money Laundering Authority-led work, including technical input on European Union regulatory standards, guidelines, opinions and reports. It will also maintain targeted publications, training, workshops and direct engagement to clarify evolving risks and supervisory expectations.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has published a consultation on proposed Banks and Deposit Companies Fees Regulations 2026 that would strengthen the disclosure, review and control of fees charged by institutions licensed under the Banks and Deposit Companies Act 1999. The framework would cover individuals, certain unincorporated businesses, charities and local small and medium businesses within defined annual revenue bands of less than BMD 1 million and BMD 1 million to BMD 5 million. It would apply to specified deposit, lending, mortgage, foreign exchange and payment card services, while excluding interest and exchange rates, taxes, third-party fees and services provided under other licences. Institutions would submit an annual schedule of eligible fees, reflecting fees as at 31 December, within one month. The Minister of Finance would complete a reasonableness review by 31 March, considering service costs and risks, customer impact, disclosure comparability and prevailing market conditions in Bermuda. Over-the-limit and account maintenance fees would initially be designated as specified fees. Existing specified fees would not be grandfathered, and institutions could not introduce or increase a specified fee without serving notice and receiving a ministerial notice of no objection following a 45-business-day review. Institutions would have to refund specified fees that were incorrectly charged, insufficiently disclosed or not reported as required, together with consequential fees, no later than the end of the next applicable billing cycle. Breaches would be handled under the BMA's existing enforcement structure, with penalties not exceeding USD 10,000.

South Africa’s National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank have published a draft Crypto Asset Manual for cross-border activities to complement the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations, 2026. The manual establishes a proposed authorisation framework for Authorised Crypto Asset Service Providers and sets out the transactions they may facilitate, together with the associated administrative, reporting and compliance obligations. Under the proposed activity-based approach, a transaction becomes cross-border when crypto assets move between a domestic Authorised Crypto Asset Service Provider and an offshore provider, or from a domestic provider to a non-custodial wallet. These flows would be reportable to the Financial Surveillance Department irrespective of value, while transfers between domestic authorised providers and purchases or sales within South African custodial wallets would remain domestic and non-reportable. Resident individuals could externalise crypto assets within the R2 million single discretionary allowance or the R10 million foreign capital allowance, while resident entities could not undertake transactions treated as imports or exports of capital. Inward transfers from non-custodial wallets would also be non-permissible. The manual proposes three authorisation categories covering crypto-based remittances, custodial wallets with cross-border functionality, or both. Applicants would be subject to governance, systems, reporting, record-keeping and capital requirements, including minimum unimpaired capital equal to the higher of R5 million or 15% of average positive annual gross income over the preceding three years.

The Central Bank of Egypt, in cooperation with the Association of African Central Banks, has launched an online portal for the African Financial Stability Committee. The portal provides a central platform for cooperation and knowledge sharing among African central banks on macroprudential financial stability issues. The portal will publish the committee’s reports, studies, technical papers and reference materials, including the recently issued inaugural African Financial Stability Report. It also provides information on the committee’s structure, members, meetings and initiatives, as well as its working groups on the report and on the development and implementation of macroprudential policies.

The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) imposed combined civil monetary penalties of $153 million on UBS Financial Services Inc. over anti-money laundering failures centered on foreign currency wire monitoring. FinCEN assessed $125 million, its largest Bank Secrecy Act penalty against a broker-dealer, after finding willful violations that included failures to maintain an adequate AML program and file suspicious activity reports. The CFTC imposed an USD 8 million penalty for supervision failures affecting AML transaction monitoring for foreign currency wires through retail commodity accounts, while FINRA fined the firm $20 million for AML violations involving transaction monitoring and customer due diligence. The actions identify recurring weaknesses that persisted after 2018 enforcement proceedings. UBS continued using a deficient manual monitoring process before moving to an automated system in 2021, but configuration, data feed and data governance problems caused transactions to remain insufficiently monitored or omitted. FINRA identified more than 60,000 foreign currency wires totaling more than USD 10 billion that were not reasonably monitored between January 2019 and June 2023, while the CFTC identified more than 28,000 wires through retail commodity accounts totaling at least USD 8.9 billion within its jurisdictional scope. FinCEN separately found that UBS failed to appropriately monitor more than 50,000 foreign currency wires worth over USD 10 billion and identified deficiencies in customer due diligence involving higher-risk customers, including customers with ties to Russia and Latin America, which contributed to delayed reporting of hundreds of suspicious transactions. FinCEN requires UBS to conduct a third-party lookback for previously undetected suspicious transactions and undergo an independent review of its AML program focused on priority illicit finance risks involving the U.S. Southwest border and cartels, Iran, Russia and Venezuela. FinCEN may waive up to USD 15 million of its penalty following satisfactory completion of the review and implementation of the third party's recommendations.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) proposed a broad revision of its information disclosure rules. Under the current framework, supervised entities generally must obtain OCC approval before disclosing non-public OCC information, including examination reports and supervisory correspondence. The OCC concluded that this broad, one-size-fits-all approach can impede legitimate information sharing for operational, governance and transaction-related purposes. The proposal would therefore establish a two-tier framework distinguishing confidential supervisory information (CSI) from other non-public OCC information (NPOI) and permit CSI disclosures without prior approval in six specified circumstances, subject to safeguards. The exceptions would cover disclosures to affiliates, qualifying U.S.-incorporated service providers, selected senior executive officer candidates, up to three potential counterparties to a business or other combination, U.S.-based consultants and attorneys advising those counterparties, and certain not-for-profit entities. Depending on the recipient and purpose, safeguards would include business-need restrictions, board approval, disclosure logs, qualifying confidentiality agreements enforceable by the OCC, due diligence acknowledgments and waivers, limits on further use and disclosure, and return or destruction requirements. Separate notice and OCC objection procedures would govern disclosures to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other federal agencies. CSI disclosures outside the specified exceptions would continue to require prior OCC approval, while other NPOI generally would be subject to disclosure restrictions only where the OCC imposes conditions.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Federal Reserve Bank of New York will launch a pilot survey of lending trends in the U.S. private credit direct lending market. The survey will provide information on credit availability, credit provision and lending standards in a market estimated at more than USD 1.3 trillion, supporting analysis of implications for the broader economy and monetary policy. The survey will segment borrowers into upper middle market firms with more than USD 100 million in EBITDA, middle market firms with EBITDA of USD 30 million to USD 100 million, and lower middle market firms with less than USD 30 million. It is intended for firms with at least USD 50 million in assets under management dedicated to private credit direct lending to U.S. businesses. The scope covers directly originated, below-investment-grade senior debt, including first-lien and unitranche facilities, while excluding broadly syndicated loans, high-yield bonds, junior debt and private credit strategies outside direct lending. The voluntary survey is expected to launch after the end of the third quarter of 2026, with aggregate findings anticipated in the first quarter of 2027. It forms part of the Federal Reserve Banks’ market intelligence gathering and will not be used for supervisory purposes.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced that its independent Office of Supervisory Appeals is fully operational and that the revised Guidelines for Appeals of Material Supervisory Determinations are now in effect. The Office replaces the Supervision Appeals Review Committee as the final level of review for material supervisory determinations affecting FDIC-supervised financial institutions. Institutions must first seek review from the relevant FDIC Division Director before appealing to the Office. Appeals will generally be decided by three-member panels, each including at least one official with bank supervisory or examination experience and at least one with industry experience. Panels will make independent supervisory determinations without deferring to either party. The Legal Division will review decisions for consistency with applicable law, regulation and FDIC policy and resolve procedural eligibility questions in consultation with the Office, but will not exercise supervisory judgment on the merits. Once an appeal has been submitted, the panel must generally meet within 90 days and issue its decision within 45 days after that meeting. The revised Guidelines broaden the range of issues institutions can challenge. They now expressly allow appeals over whether an institution has complied with an informal enforcement action or with conditions imposed through the supervisory or application process. Both matters requiring board attention and matters requiring attention are also appealable. Institutions may also use an expedited process to challenge supervisory findings that support certain proposed formal enforcement actions, although the enforcement action itself cannot be appealed through this process. This option is unavailable when the proposed action involves unsafe or unsound practices, anti-money laundering, countering the financing of terrorism or sanctions violations, or when the institution declines to extend the period in which the FDIC may bring the action.