On 12 August 2026, the Swiss Federal Council opened a consultation on amendments to the Banking Act and the Liquidity Ordinance that would rewrite how the country supervises, disciplines and, if necessary, resolves its largest banks. The consultation runs until 19 November 2026, and it is the legislative core of the Swiss too-big-to-fail reform that…
On 12 August 2026, ECB Banking Supervision published two linked newsletter articles: one reported shorter and more targeted on-site investigations, while the other reported a reduction in the stock of outstanding supervisory measures across significant institutions. The average on-site investigation, measured from kick-off to issuance of the final report, has already fallen from 33 weeks…
FINMA published two updated sanctions notifications on 11 August 2026, one for Sudan and one for South Sudan, after the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER/WBF) amended Annex 2 of each ordinance. For a Swiss supervised institution, the FINMA notifications are an operational alert that the relevant Annex 2 lists changed. The…
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has admitted it breached its accountability obligations under the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR), and on 10 August 2026 the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) filed civil penalty proceedings against it in the Federal Court. The parties have jointly proposed that the bank pay an $8 million pecuniary penalty, subject to…
On 13 November 2025, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) launched Ensemble TX, the pilot phase of Project Ensemble, and with it moved tokenised-deposit settlement out of the laboratory and into real-value transactions. HKMA Project Ensemble had spent more than a year as a sandbox; Ensemble TX now lets participating banks settle interbank tokenised deposit…
On 7 August 2026 the FCA published a statement confirming that it is applying increased scrutiny to Annex 1 firms, including unregulated lenders, safe custody providers, money brokers and financial leasing companies registered with it for anti-money laundering purposes. Alongside the statement, the regulator said it had sent an information request to around 900 Annex…
On 6 August 2026 the Financial Stability Board published the public responses to its consultation on Sound Practices for Responsible Adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The FSB AI sound practices were put out for comment on 10 June 2026, the comment window closed on 22 July 2026, and the FSB now says it expects to…
On 6 August 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority began serving its Handbook of rules and guidance through a new application programming interface. The FCA Handbook API lets a firm’s own software pull the text of UK conduct rules, technical standards and defined terms directly, instead of reading them off the website or waiting for a…
When a UK issuer prices a new residential mortgage-backed security or a credit-card asset-backed security this autumn, one decision is taken long before the roadshow: whether the senior notes will meet Bank of England collateral eligibility. A security that qualifies as Level B collateral may be used in SMF facilities that accept Level B, subject…
On 31 December 2025 the Hong Kong Monetary Authority completed its annual assessment and confirmed the list of authorized institutions designated as domestic systemically important banks. The HKMA D-SIB designation for 2026 names the same five institutions as a year earlier, and it leaves their Higher Loss Absorbency (HLA) requirements at the levels each already…