In the wake of the news that crypto exchange FTX is on the brink of collapse, Matt Smith, CEO and co-founder of compliance technology and data analytics firm, SteelEye made some comments about the part Binance played in FTX’s fall from grace: “The digital assets market has been rocked – once again – by the near collapse of one of the sector’s leading players, FTX. Despite huge inflows of investment, FTX was reckoning with a “liquidity crunch”. Surging withdrawals – reportedly amounting to $6 billion in just three days – plummeted the crypto exchange’s valuation, and FTT, FTX’s native coin, collapsed by 72% in just 24 hours.” Continue reading…

On 10 November 2022, the European Parliament adopted the Digital Operational Resilience Act. DORA is an EU regulation that sets out to establish a uniform and comprehensive framework for the digital operational resilience of the financial sector. Nearly all regulated financial entities are in scope of DORA. They will have to put in place sufficient safeguards to protect against cyber and other ICT risks, in their internal processes but also in their existing and new contracts with ICT service providers. Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published a consultative document on Achieving Greater Convergence in Cyber Incident Reporting. Timely and accurate information on cyber incidents is crucial for effective incident response and recovery and promoting financial stability. The proposals take a comprehensive approach and include: Continue reading…

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) are strengthening their cooperation to further improve information exchange and avoid potential market abuse in Europe’s spot and derivative markets. The two EU agencies have a long-established cooperative relationship considering the interlinkages between spot and derivative energy markets. One of the fora where this cooperation takes place is the Energy Trading Enforcement Forum (ETEF) where the energy National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs), the financial National Competent Authorities (NCAs), ESMA and ACER discuss implementation issues concerning market abuse rules and share their experience in relation to their supervisory activity and enforcement actions to ensure consistency across the EU.  Continue reading…

by Mark Worth

Revealing the inadequacy of the world’s second-oldest whistleblower system, a new report finds UK officials release “scant or no information at all” about what happens to disclosures after citizens submit them. Many UK public agencies that are legally required to investigate whistleblower reports provide “generic or vague” information about their responses to the disclosures, according to the London-based NGO Protect. In a “significant” number of cases, the agencies took “limited or no action” or did not provide enough information about what – if any – action they took when a citizen reported crime or corruption. Continue reading…

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has on 4 November published the final methodology, draft templates and template guidance for the 2023 EU-wide stress test along with the milestone dates for the exercise. The methodology and templates cover all relevant risk areas and have considered the feedback received from industry. The stress test exercise will be launched in January 2023 with the publication of the macroeconomic scenarios. The results will be published by the end of July 2023. Continue reading…

The BIS Innovation Hub is launching a new project around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols as part of its 2022 work programme. Project Mariana explores automated market makers (AMM) for the cross-border exchange of hypothetical Swiss franc, euro and Singapore dollar wholesale CBDCs. It will seek to examine the potential between financial institutions to settle foreign exchange trades in financial markets. Continue reading…

by Daniel Vaknine

When it comes to whistleblowing within an organisation, it is a good idea to use a whistleblower system. In short, this is a system that allows employees to report wrongdoings internally. In this article, I’ll go through the different types of whistleblower systems that are available so that you can gain an increased awareness of what methods are available. This in turn makes it easier to decide which methods your organisation can or should offer.

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The FCA expects lenders to learn the lessons from good and poor practice during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic to help borrowers during the cost-of-living squeeze. The FCA acted quickly during the pandemic to put in place guidance that led to more than five million payment deferrals for mortgage and credit customers. This was followed by guidance on tailored support. In a report published on 3 November, the FCA found examples of firms delivering good outcomes for customers – but others must do a lot better to support borrowers in financial difficulty. Just 30% of firms (15 out of 50) it reviewed sufficiently explored customer’s specific circumstances, which meant repayment agreements were often unaffordable and unsustainable. Continue reading…