Articles

  • FINTRAC Foreign Branch Rules: Canada’s Extraterritorial AML Reach

    A Canadian bank with a branch in Singapore falls within section 9.7; a life insurance company’s foreign subsidiary is covered only if it carries out similar activities and is wholly owned or consolidated with the company; and a securities dealer’s affiliated London entity can trigger section 9.8 if the statutory affiliation test is met. Canada’s…

  • FATF Terrorist Financing on Social Media: What AML Teams Should Check

    On 26 June 2026 the Financial Action Task Force published a report on terrorist financing through social media, instant messaging applications and streaming platforms, and it lands with an uncomfortable number attached. Fewer than 30% of jurisdictions contributing to the FATF report said that this risk was covered in their national risk assessments. That national-level…

  • Hong Kong Stablecoins Ordinance: HKMA Grants the First Issuer Licences

    On 10 April 2026 the Hong Kong Monetary Authority granted the territory’s first two stablecoin issuer licences, to Anchorpoint Financial Limited and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited. Both licences took effect that day under the Hong Kong Stablecoins Ordinance, the statute that has regulated fiat-referenced stablecoins since it came into operation on 1…

  • APRA Level 3 Conglomerate Standards: The 1 October 2026 Sunset

    On 27 July 2026, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) confirmed that it will remake three of the APRA Level 3 conglomerate standards before they automatically lapse on 1 October 2026. The three instruments are Prudential Standard 3PS 221 Aggregate Risk Exposures, Prudential Standard 3PS 222 Intra-group Transactions and Exposures, and Prudential Standard 3PS 310…

  • FATF Fraud Roadmap 2026-2028: Fraud as a Core AML Risk

    On 1 July 2026 the United Kingdom took over the two-year Presidency of the Financial Action Task Force and used its first day to launch the FATF 2026-2028 Roadmap on Combatting Fraud. The launch event, opened by the incoming FATF President Giles Thomson and supported by Executive Secretary Violaine Clerc, set fraud as one of…

  • FINMA Crypto Custody Guidance 01/2026: The Custody Chain Review

    On 12 January 2026 the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published Guidance 01/2026, Custody of cryptobased assets, addressing institutions subject to FINMA supervision and identifying banks, securities firms, managers of collective assets and portfolio managers in particular. The document carries a blunt message: it restates the rules that already govern crypto custody in Switzerland…

  • FATF Public-Private Partnerships: Sharing AML Data at Scale

    On 8 July 2026 the Financial Action Task Force published a global stocktake of public-private partnerships for fighting illicit finance, and the message to reporting teams is blunt: the data that would expose a laundering network usually sits in fragments across separate banks, payment firms and law enforcement files, and criminals move faster than any…

  • PRA CRR Definitions Restatement: The 1 January 2027 Rulebook Switch

    From 1 January 2027, Articles 4, 4A, 4B and 5 of the UK Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) are revoked. HM Treasury has restated selected definitions in domestic legislation, while the PRA’s CRR definitions restatement, finalised in Policy Statement PS14/26 on 27 May 2026, places other PRA-facing definitions in the PRA Rulebook Glossary or cross-refers from…

  • FATF Travel Rule Implementation: The Enforcement Gap

    On 16 July 2026 the Financial Action Task Force published its seventh targeted update on how countries are implementing the FATF standards for virtual assets and virtual asset service providers. The headline finding is that implementation remains uneven. Of the 109 jurisdictions answering the Travel Rule legislation question, 91, or 83 percent, reported legislation in…