The European Securities and Markets Authority has a broad remit bringing it into contact with many areas of financial markets, at the wholesale and retail level.  In this episode of GRR’s regulatory podcast series, Verena Ross, chair of ESMA provides insights into the authority’s work around:  ESG and curbing greenwashingAnalysing and collecting markets data relating to regulations such as MiFID Challenges around implementing and future proofing DORA and MiCAThe Benchmarks Regulation and its...

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could usher in a revolution in the financial system creating openings for exciting new innovations. However, depending on their design, CBDCs could be disruptive, particularly for deposit taking banks.  The European Central Bank is currently studying designs for a potential digital euro. This has ignited a lively debate within policy making and banking circles.  In this podcast, Ulrich Bindseil, director general of market infrastructure and payments at...

Stablecoins have seen explosive growth in the last year with the Bank for International Settlements estimating that as of late 2021, there were $120bn of them in circulation. This has caught the attention of regulators who are pondering whether these instruments will revolutionize finance in a beneficial way for society or could become a major financial systemic threat. To address those issues is Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy at Circle - an issuer of the...

According to the Bank for International Settlements around 80 central banks are exploring or developing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).  Some experts consider CBDCs to be among one of the most significant developments in the history of money. Depending on their design they could have a profound impact on the financial system and society.  This podcast explores a range of issues related to CBDCs, such as their design, should they be programmable, disintermediation of financial...

The rise of blockchain and crypto assets are going to profoundly influence the future development of financial services and are naturally of great interest to supervisors.  How supervisors decide to regulate crypto will in itself play a major role in how traditional financial services adapt to this new phenomenon.  This episode looks at the approaches being taken in the EU, UK, US and some other jurisdictions and how it might impact the transition of crypto into mainstream finance. It also...

Environmental, social governance (ESG) factors and the rapid rise of crypto assets and currencies and blockchain have all become major focal points for supervisors. This is necessitating, in some cases, new regulatory frameworks or adapting existing ones.  In this episode, Bryan Stirewalt, the CEO of the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) shares his insights into how the authority is approaching the regulation of crypto and he also delves into how the global adoption of ESG can be...

The potential introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could potentially upend bank business models depending on their design and implementation. It’s a topic, which has implications well beyond monetary policy and the nature of money.  The rapid rise in the popularity of crypto currencies such as bitcoin, Facebook's plans around creating stablecoins backed by existing national currencies and the growing digitisation of financial services has prompted central banks to...

Prudential frameworks are designed to ensure banks can cope with risks and still remain solvent in the face of economic adversity. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors have risen up the political and regulatory agenda due to issues such as increasingly extreme weather patterns through to growing concerns over social justice.  Society increasingly expects banks, as capital allocators, to do their bit in helping to fight climate change and to not support certain unethical...

Prudential frameworks are designed to ensure banks can cope with risks and still remain solvent in the face of economic adversity. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors have risen up the political and regulatory agenda due to issues such as increasingly extreme weather patterns through to growing concerns over social justice.  Society increasingly expects banks, as capital allocators, to do their bit in helping to fight climate change and to not support certain unethical...

Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) are undoubtedly going to remain one of the most high profile topics impacting policy and financial regulation for years to come.  ESG brings with it a whole set of new data, disclosure and reporting requirements meaning there is a great deal of work to do to create new frameworks. There is also a strong agenda among international bodies to create standards that work across borders for investors and issuers of securities alike.   It is...

The move from the London interbank offered rate compelled by regulators due to manipulation scandals towards alternative risk free interest benchmarks has been protracted and painful for those involved.  Undoubtedly, much progress has been made with many sectors of the financial industry such as derivatives seemingly well prepared. But moving away from the financial sector towards corporates, preparations and transition arrangements have been slower and patchy, which has raised concern...

The move from the London interbank offered rate compelled by regulators due to manipulation scandals towards alternative risk free interest benchmarks has been protracted and painful for those involved.  Undoubtedly, much progress has been made with many sectors of the financial industry such as derivatives seemingly well prepared. But moving away from the financial sector towards corporates, preparations and transition arrangements have been slower and patchy, which has raised concern...

Singapore is famous globally for its enthusiasm for technology and for pushing the envelope in this area. The Monetary Authority of Singapore very much follows in that tradition and is a pioneer in the use of supervisory technology (SupTech).  It has a raft of projects designed to turn itself into the most advanced technology driven central bank in the world as it steadily digitises many of its functions. These range from fundamentally rethinking how data is harvested from financial firms...

Singapore is famous globally for its enthusiasm for technology and for pushing the envelope in this area. The Monetary Authority of Singapore very much follows in that tradition and is a pioneer in the use of supervisory technology (SupTech).  It has a raft of projects designed to turn itself into the most advanced technology driven central bank in the world as it steadily digitises many of its functions. These range from fundamentally rethinking how data is harvested from financial firms...

When governments across the world ordered population lockdowns to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, banks had to quickly switch away from working in offices towards remote working - which has never been done before on such a big scale. This impacted almost the entire business from payments through to vast trading floors and all their support functions.  This episode explores the operational risk implications of this sudden and widespread shift in working patterns.  In particular,...

When governments across the world ordered population lockdowns to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, banks had to quickly switch away from working in offices towards remote working - which has never been done before on such a big scale. This impacted almost the entire business from payments through to vast trading floors and all their support functions.  This episode explores the operational risk implications of this sudden and widespread shift in working patterns.  In particular,...

Following the 2007-9 global financial crisis - the Basel framework underwent significant revisions. It’s partly thanks to these changes that banks entered the Covid-19 pandemic induced crisis in a robust condition.  Nonetheless, it remains unclear how deep and prolonged the current downturn will be and how many bad loans banks will notch up in the process.  Therefore, could there be further revisions to the Basel framework? Particularly if the current crisis turns out to be particularly...

Following the 2007-9 global financial crisis - the Basel framework underwent significant revisions. It’s partly thanks to these changes that banks entered the Covid-19 pandemic induced crisis in a robust condition.  Nonetheless, it remains unclear how deep and prolonged the current downturn will be and how many bad loans banks will notch up in the process.  Therefore, could there be further revisions to the Basel framework? Particularly if the current crisis turns out to be particularly...

Regulators, central banks and governments have taken unprecedented measures to support the economy during population lockdowns around the world to stamp out the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Prudential regulators have also acted quickly to ensure banks help support the economy. This has involved measures ranging from payment holidays on some loans, to delayed reporting through to pushing back some regulatory implementation deadlines and even temporary relaxations of some capital...

Regulators, central banks and governments have taken unprecedented measures to support the economy during population lockdowns around the world to stamp out the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Prudential regulators have also acted quickly to ensure banks help support the economy. This has involved measures ranging from payment holidays on some loans, to delayed reporting through to pushing back some regulatory implementation deadlines and even temporary relaxations of some capital...

The economic fall-out from the Covid-19 pandemic is the first major test for the IFRS-9 accounting standard, which only came into force in 2018.  Global Risk Regulator chaired a discussion about how banks are interpreting the IFRS-9 standard, what approaches they’re taking to forward provisioning for bad loans and how they’re accounting for regulatory guidance around how they should provision for non-performing loans.  The two experts who took part in the discussion were Jane Fuller who...