The Bank of England (the Bank), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today published a shared policy summary and co-ordinated consultation papers (CPs) on new requirements to strengthen operational resilience in the financial services sector. Building the operational resilience of firms and Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) is a shared priority for the three supervisory authorities. The co-ordinated CPs build on the concepts set out in the operational resilience Discussion Paper published by the authorities last year, addressing many of the proposed policy changes based on the responses we received. Continue reading…

An easing of US-China trade tensions in October triggered a risk-on phase in global financial markets. In September, risky asset prices across the globe stayed range-bound, supported by additional monetary accommodation in a context of subdued prospects for global activity. As sentiment shifted, stocks posted large gains in most markets but China, and credit spreads tightened. Term spreads in advanced economies (AEs) initially widened in line with the change in market sentiment. But their upward momentum petered out after a few weeks.

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The European Union adopted a new €297 million assistance package to support refugees and host communities in Jordan and Lebanon via the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis. The EU has also decided to extend the mandate of the Trust Fund which will allow the Trust Fund’s projects to run until the end of 2023.

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Michel Klompmaker

On November 14, the first edition of the Augmenting Customer Due Diligence (ACDD) event was held at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. Compliance is certainly not a boring field and you must be fully familiar with what is possible and what is not allowed. No financial institution, large or small, appears to be immune to the threat of fraud or money laundering. This event was meant to examine how data and innovation can accelerate progress towards common goals, such as cost reduction and streamlining of the CDD (KYC) process. Continue reading…

The Federal Trade Commission has reached settlements with four companies that allegedly misrepresented their participation in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, which enables companies to transfer consumer data legally from European Union countries to the United States. The FTC also alleged that two of the companies failed to comply with Privacy Shield requirements.

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A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by Boriana Yontcheva, visited Bamako during November 19-29, 2019, to hold discussions on the first review of the economic and financial program supported by the IMF under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF).

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The Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) appointed Benoît Cœuré as Head of the new BIS Innovation Hub on Sunday, set up to foster international collaboration among central banks on innovative financial technology. Mr. Cœuré will start his new role on 15 January 2020 for a five-year term. Mr. Cœuré has since 2013 chaired the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, the global standard-setter for payment, clearing and settlement services. He also led the Group of Seven working group on global stablecoins and co-chairs a related Financial Stability Board working group. Continue reading…

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published today two consultative documents related to Pillar 3 disclosure. The first document proposes a set of revised disclosure requirements related to the market risk framework finalised in January 2019. The second document consults on voluntary disclosure templates related to banks’ sovereign exposures. Revisions to market risk disclosure requirements set out a set of adjustments to the Pillar 3 templates for the revised market risk framework to reflect changes introduced in Minimum capital requirements for market risk in January 2019. In addition to these changes, the Committee proposes to enhance disclosure of the trading desk structure of banks using the internal models approach by reinforcing a materiality threshold to determine the scope of individual trading desks subject to the requirement. Continue reading…