On August 31st, the EU has reached a crucial milestone with 70% of the adult population now fully vaccinated. In total, over 256 million adults in the EU have now received a full vaccine course. Seven weeks ago already, the Commission’s delivery target was met, ahead of time: to provide Member States, by the end of July, with enough vaccine doses to fully vaccinate 70% of the adult EU population.

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by Dan Mihai

City Insurance is at risk of becoming bankrupt because of its hundreds of millions of euros in debt. The company failed to prove to the Romanian Supervisory Financial Authority (ASF) that it holds the legal minimum amount of money (150 mil. €) in order for it to operate, thus risking its operating license to be taken away. A dutch investment fund of questionable origins bought the insurance company for the necessary amount, but didn’t keep its commitment of making the payment in time. Tens of thousands of opened claims from the City Insurance clients are going to be transferred to the Guarantee Fund for the Insured (FGA). Continue reading…

On Thursday 9 September 2021, Richard Faithfull was sentenced to five years and 10 months imprisonment for laundering money, contrary to s.327 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. He was also disqualified from being a company director for a period of 10 years. Faithfull had previously pleaded guilty to that offence on 16 April 2021 and put forward a basis of plea that sought to minimise his role in the offending. The FCA did not accept Faithfull’s basis of plea and the matter was listed for a Newton hearing – a trial of fact on a plea before a single judge – to determine the basis upon which he should be sentenced. 

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The European Central Bank (ECB) has successfully introduced interaction on Fit and Proper testing with significant institutions and their advisors via a dedicated infrastructure called IMAS Portal. Two new procedure types will be onboarded in the coming months to the ECB’s IMAS Portal, i.e. passporting notifications and qualifying holding procedures. They will be onboarded end of (i.e. 27) September 2021. Passporting notifications and applications with regard to qualifying holdings will therefore need to be submitted via the IMAS portal as of 1 January 2022. This relates to passporting notifications by and qualifying holdings in Dutch banks. Hence, significant and less significant Dutch banks.  Continue reading…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator, has published its second Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities (TRV) Report of 2021. The Report highlights the continued rise in valuations across asset classes in an environment of economic recovery and low interest rates, the increased risk taking of investors and the materialisation of event risks such as GameStop, Archegos and Greensill. ESMA continues to see elevated risks and fragile fundamentals, with an outlook for continued high risk and uncertainty over the sustainability of corporate and public debt as well as rising inflation expectations. Continue reading…

Incorrect or outdated permissions on the Financial Services (FS) Register can mislead consumers about the level of protection offered by a firm or give credibility to a firm’s unregulated activities. The changes will help to prevent scams and to ensure the FS Register presents a clearer picture of the permissions firms hold. Firms are required to confirm that the information on the FS Register is accurate on an annual basis. The new power, granted to the FCA via the Financial Services Act 2021, will streamline and shorten the process of removing firm permissions. The FCA will be able to start the cancellation process as soon as it considers permissions are not being used, by serving 14 days’ notice on a firm. The FCA will then be able to vary or cancel permissions after 1 month. Continue reading…

Benoît Cœuré, Head of the BIS Innovation Hub,  gave a speech on Friday 10 September 2021 at the Eurofi Financial Forum, Ljubljana. We all experienced how the pandemic accelerated the shift to virtual events, but he was pleased that he could gather in person. Yet the world is not returning to the old normal. Payments are a case in point. The pandemic has accelerated a longer-running move to digital. Mobile and contactless payments are already part of our daily lives; QR codes and “buy now, pay later” options are gaining popularity; gloves, badges and Olympic uniforms with payment functions are being prepared for the Beijing Winter Olympics; and the tech-savvy generation will soon dream about money and payments for the metaverse. Continue reading…

In the morning of 8 September, coordinated searches and witness hearings in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark took place to halt the activities of a criminal group committing large-scale investment fraud, causing damages amounting to over EUR 55 million to a large number of victims across Europe. The action followed a complex, three-year-long investigation, which was led by the Public Prosecution Office (PPO) of Dresden and the State Office of Criminal Investigations of Saxony in Germany and coordinated through Eurojust. Continue reading…