Regulatory reporting for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), asset-referenced token issuers, e-money token issuers, and other firms in scope of MiCAR. This section covers the MiCAR reporting obligations for CASPs – including significant ART/EMT issuer thresholds and ongoing supervisory data – alongside EBA statements on ART and EMT supervision and FATF analysis of stablecoins, unhosted wallets, and the related AML/CFT implications. Articles are aimed at CASPs preparing for MiCAR authorisation and ongoing reporting, plus banking and payment teams that need to assess client and counterparty exposures to digital assets. Start with the MiCAR reporting obligations guide for the implementation fundamentals.
On 28 October 2025 the Hong Kong Monetary Authority published the e-HKD Pilot Programme Phase 2 Report and, with it, drew a line under three years of retail testing. The report sets out the HKMA’s latest policy stance on Hong Kong’s central bank digital currency: the immediate priority for the e-HKD sits in wholesale settlement…
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…
The Deloitte Tohmatsu LLC research report is dated 30 June 2026, and the FSA added it to its public research page on 23 July 2026 under the title “Cybersecurity Issues and Countermeasures in Crypto-Asset-Related Businesses.” It sits under the FSA’s Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN) research track and follows the JFSA’s April 2026 Policy for…
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…
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…
On 21 July 2026 the Financial Action Task Force published its Targeted Report on Regulatory Challenges from Decentralised Finance, and the message for anti-money laundering teams is blunt: decentralised is a claim to be tested, not a label that lifts a service out of scope. Where an identifiable natural or legal person controls or sufficiently…
On 17 December 2024 the European Securities and Markets Authority published its Final Report and, in Annex III, the Guidelines on the conditions and criteria for the qualification of crypto-assets as financial instruments, reference ESMA75453128700-1323. That document, often shortened to the CAFI Guidelines, addresses whether a crypto-asset qualifies as a financial instrument and is therefore…
On 18 May 2026, the Prudential Regulation Authority published a Dear CEO letter addressed to the chief executives of all banks and designated investment firms, signed by David Bailey, Charlotte Gerken and Rebecca Jackson. The PRA continues to expect a 100 per cent own-funds requirement under the market-risk framework for unbacked cryptoassets. Separately, where a…
On 8 July 2026 the European Securities and Markets Authority launched a Common Supervisory Action on crypto-asset service providers, aimed squarely at one activity: custody. The exercise assesses the maturity of CASP digital operational resilience frameworks for custody services, and national competent authorities will run it on a risk-based sample of authorised CASPs from the…
A firm running a UK crypto exchange or custody desk has, until now, operated on a Money Laundering Regulations registration, a light-touch anti-money-laundering permission and little else. On 30 June 2026 that arrangement stopped being enough. The FCA published the final rulebook for the FCA cryptoasset regime, and the rulebook treats an existing registration as…