WORD OF THE DAY® – Clean-Up Call
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has released an ESG dashboard, accompanied by a press release, establishing a comprehensive framework to improve the monitoring of climate-related risks within the EU/EEA banking sector...more
The value of European banking M&A hits its highest point in a decade as lenders hunt for growth across the continent - A potential ramping-up in European banking M&A has become a hot topic as a lower net interest margin...more
The first two instalments of the EU’s much anticipated omnibus packages of simplification were published on 26 February. The Commission proposes amendments to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the...more
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) establishes a harmonised and comprehensive framework for information and communication technology (ICT) risk management in the financial sector. It is a directly applicable EU...more
Many governments are grappling with the question of how to regulate artificial intelligence to ensure it is adopted safely and used responsibly without hampering innovation. Governments have generally indicated similar...more
UK & European Financial Services M&A: Sector Trends H2 2023 | H1 2024 - 3 key drivers of bank M&A: - Arrival of long-awaited mammoth consolidation deals: Italy’s UniCredit and Spain’s BBVA sound the charge. - “Challenger”...more
The Irish government has been supportive of the development of the financial services sector in Ireland and this extends to fintech. The government’s strategy for the development of Ireland’s international financial services...more
In this week’s edition, our focus remains on carbon credits where the first ever set of “Core Carbon Principles”-labelled carbon credits were approved. The three European supervisory authorities publish their final reports on...more
In our previous alert “Acquiring or Investing in EU Crypto-Asset Businesses: MiCA’s Impact,” we discussed the impact of the European Union (EU) Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) on the acquisition or investment in EU...more
Crypto Custody Providers Launch Institutional Focused Offerings - According to a recent press release by BitGo, a major U.S. cryptocurrency custody provider, BitGo’s GoNetwork and Copper’s ClearLoop have entered into a...more
On 17 October 2023, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a statement (the Statement) clarifying the timeline for implementation of the Regulation on Markets in Cryptoassets ((EU) 2023/1114) (MiCA)...more
Of particular note this week, HM Treasury published a policy paper on ‘Greening Finance: A Roadmap to Sustainable Investing’ which sets out the UK government’s ambition to support the financial services sector to align with...more
Key developments of interest over the last month include: Europe: EBA consults on proposed guidelines on limited network exclusion under PSD2 UAE: Central bank issues Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation United...more
ANTITRUST AND COMPETITION - The European Commission Opens a New Investigation in the Pharma Sector - On 4 March 2021, the European Commission (Commission) has opened a formal investigation into alleged misuses of patent...more
CRD V and BRRD II-derived UK legislation: PRA statement on application of temporary transitional power - The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has published a statement on the application of its temporary...more
The European Banking Authority has published the second in a series of three opinions on the implementation of the Deposit Guarantee Scheme Directive in the EU. This opinion relates to DGS payouts. The first opinion related...more
The European Banking Authority has published a report on the impact of financial technology on the business models of payment and electronic money institutions. The report aims to provide an overview of the current FinTech...more
On 18 July 2019 the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a report on the EU regulatory perimeter, national regulatory status and EU national regulators' (NCAs') authorisation approaches for FinTech firms conducting...more
The European Banking Authority has published an Opinion on market approaches to payment authentication that will be deemed compliant with the new rules on strong customer authentication coming into force later this year....more
The wait is over. Whispers of mega-deals have matured into agenda items for boards of many larger European banks. Overview - 3 highlights of bank M&A: - Bank consolidation: The numbers speak for themselves—100 regional and...more
BREXIT - Final EBA Outsourcing Guidelines: Impact on firms’ Brexit contingency plans - The EBA has published final guidelines on outsourcing (the EBA Guidelines), which will replace the guidelines issued by its predecessor,...more
Partners Julia Smithers Excell and Stuart Willey, and associate Laura Kitchen of global law firm White & Case take a deep dive on the latest publications from EU and UK regulators aimed at providing supervisory clarity on the...more
With crypto-currencies on the rise and technological developments providing great opportunities in the financial services sector, Initial Coin Offerings ("ICO") provide an innovative way of raising capital. They are...more
The European Securities and Markets Authority has published a report on the application and suitability of the EU securities regulatory framework to crypto-assets, including Initial Coin Offerings. The report is in response...more
Antitrust and Competition - Transactions in the digital sector and acquisition of data continue to attract scrutiny in Europe - On 6 September 2018, the European Commission cleared without conditions the proposed acquisition...more