by Frank Staelens

The EU Whistleblower Protection Directive came into force on 16 December 2019. Member States have up till 17 December 2021 to transpose the new EU regulations into national laws. The latest progress reports show that most Member States will not be able to meet this deadline. Even with some delays in some Member States, most EU organisations with more than 250 employees only have a few months left to organise their compliance, while the average implementation time for non complex environments is two months.  Continue reading…

A prototype of multiple Central Bank Digital Currencies (mCBDCs) developed by the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub and four central banks demonstrated the potential of using digital currencies and distributed ledger technology (DLT) for delivering real-time, cheaper and safer cross-border payments and settlements. The mBridge project is a cooperation between the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority; the Bank of Thailand; the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China; and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates. The common prototype platform for mCBDC settlements was able to complete international transfers and foreign exchange operations in seconds, as opposed to the several days normally required for any transaction to be completed using the existing network of commercial banks and operate in a 24/7 basis. The cost of such operations to users can also be reduced by up to half, according to the project’s report published recently.
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Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of Financial Stability at the Bank of England, gave a speech on October 13 at the recently held virtual SIBOS 2021 conference. In his talk, he looked at the impact of ‘crypto’ on the stability of the UK’s financial system. He also spoke about how unbacked crypto-assets (eg Bitcoin) and backed crypto-assets for payments (stablecoins) have begun to connect to the financial system, and how regulators are responding to their rapid growth. Note: as this is Mr. Cunliffe’s speech, we as a platform think that it is very important to publish the whole speech without any modifications due to the fact that it was also checked and verified by several experts. What is written beneath is his original speech. You can find all relevant information on his talk, including footnotes, in the link that is provided at the end of the article. 

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The Bank for International Settlements, the world’s oldest international financial organisation, will open its doors to the public in October for a special exhibition marking its 90 years of promoting global monetary and financial stability. The BIS 90 Years exhibition and Open Week will showcase the Bank’s unique role in the global financial system, looking at its history since 1930 and with a particular focus on the BIS today and tomorrow. The interactive, multimedia BIS 90 Years exhibition was developed and designed in collaboration with Basel design agency berger + Co. The exhibition will be displayed over three levels of the iconic BIS Tower building in Basel, including the 18th floor with its bird’s eye view over the city and the surrounding area.  Continue reading…

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, recently delivered a speech before the Hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament, Frankfurt am Main. In her confirmatory hearing before this Committee back in September 2019, she set out a goal: to ensure that the ECB engaged in a reflection on whether its monetary policy framework was sufficiently robust to meet future challenges. With the successful conclusion of its strategy review in July, she believes that they have achieved that goal. The review took the ECB’s mandate and primary objective of price stability, which is conferred by the Treaty, as a given. Continue reading…

Banco di Caribe NV (“Banco di Caribe”) has been sold to United Group Holdings BV (“United”). The sale includes all banking activities of Banco di Caribe in Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire and Sint Maarten as well as the insurance and investment activities of Van der Lubbe Assurantiën NV, Bancarib Real Insurance Curaçao NV and BdC Investments BV. The sale agreement was signed on 11 September 2021, by seller Ennia Caribe Holding NV (“ECH”), represented by the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (“CBCS”) and buyer United. ECH is the parent company of the Ennia group. United is an established financial services provider active in Curaçao and six European countries, including financial centres such as Amsterdam, London and Luxembourg. Continue reading…

Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive, HSBC, was the opening keynote speaker for Sibos 2021. Quinn, appointed Group Chief Executive in March 2020, has been with HSBC – or its constituent companies – since 1987. He has extensive breadth and depth of expertise, having previously led a number of business lines within the HSBC Group. Quinn also brings a truly global perspective to Sibos, with experience spanning Asia, the US and Europe. Continue reading…

On September 29, the Basel Committee published the results of its latest Basel III monitoring exercise, based on 31 December 2020 data. The report sets out the impact of the Basel III framework including the December 2017 finalisation of the Basel III reforms and the January 2019 finalisation of the market risk framework. It includes a special feature on exemptions from the leverage ratio exposure measure due to Covid-19, and covers both Group 1 and 2 banks (see note to editors for definitions). The final Basel III minimum requirements will be implemented by 1 January 2023 and fully phased in by 1 January 2028. The average impact of the fully phased-in final Basel III framework on the Tier 1 minimum required capital (MRC) of Group 1 banks is +2.9%, compared to a 1.8% increase at end-December 2019. This higher impact for Group 1 banks and G-SIBs may be partially driven by the different treatment of some outlier banks. Continue reading…

Every day, 20% of all bank staff in the Netherlands is engaged in detecting financial crime. This is a direct consequence of the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation introduced since 2001. Detection efforts are mostly manual and therefore very inefficient: 95% of all alerts generated by transaction monitoring systems are false positives. These are the findings of regulatory technology specialist Hyarchis in its new Regulatory Technology on the Rise report, published recently. Continue reading…

On October 1st, ING announced the start of a share buyback programme under which it plans to repurchase ordinary shares of ING Groep, with a maximum total value of €1,744 million and for a number of shares not exceeding the authority granted by the general meeting of shareholders (10% of the issued shares). The share buyback programme will commence on 5 October 2021 and is expected to end no later than 5 May 2022. The purpose of the share buyback programme is to reduce the share capital of ING. Continue reading…