Welcome to this week's global fintech round-up, summarising fintech regulatory developments that have happened around the world along with our Clifford Chance fintech publications and upcoming events. 

Details of these and previous developments can also be found on our Fintech Topic Guide on the Clifford Chance Financial Markets Toolkit.

CLIFFORD CHANCE BRIEFINGS AND MATERIALS

CLIFFORD CHANCE BRIEFINGS AND MATERIALS

• (6 Oct 2022) Talking Tech podcast – The EU Pilot Regime: unlocking the Digital Capital Markets
• (5 Oct 2022) Talking Tech article – New Antitrust Tools for the Digital Economy in China and the EU: a Comparative view of the Platform Antitrust Guidelines in China and the Digital Markets Act in the EU
• (4 Oct 2022) Talking Tech article – Digital Asset Services: How do English Courts' new powers to order disclosure of information by foreign non parties impact on providers outside of England & Wales?

SPOTLIGHT: Clifford Chance and Crafty Counsel videos 

We’ve teamed up once again with Crafty Counsel to bring you more videos in The Fintech Files series. This time it's a Europe edition!

• Episode One:Adyen's Mats Klein Breteler joins Marian Scheele and Christian Hissnauer to discuss some of the big trends, including the move towards a platform economy.
• Episode Two:How Mollie is using partnerships to improve the services of payment platforms
• Episode Three: Challenges and trends of the currency payments market, with Constant van der Merwe, Senior Counsel at Tencent

GLOBAL LEGAL AND REGULATORY UPDATES, INDUSTRY GUIDANCE AND PUBLICATIONS

International

• (11 Oct 2022) Financial Stability Board (FSB) consultation on a proposed framework for the international regulation of cryptoasset activities, based on the principle of 'same activity, same risk, same regulation'. The proposed framework includes recommendations on regulatory, supervisory and oversight approaches to cryptoasset activities and markets as well as revised high-level recommendations for the regulation, supervision, and oversight of global stablecoin arrangements to address associated financial stability risks more effectively. Comments are due by 15 December 2022. | Press release
• (10 Oct 2022) FSB report on the progress made during the second year of the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments and priorities for the next phase of work. Amongst other things, the report states that the Bank for International Settlements' Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures is considering whether and how the use of well-designed and risk-managed stablecoin arrangements could enhance cross-border payments by addressing existing frictions, what opportunities and challenges this would bring, and how this could impact central banks' core functions. The outcome of this work will be finalised by the end of 2022.
• (10 Oct 2022) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), a new global tax transparency framework to provide for the reporting and exchange of information with respect to cryptoassets. The CARF contains model rules that can be transposed into domestic legislation, and targets any digital representation of value that relies on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger or a similar technology to validate and secure transactions. | Press release

Americas

US:  

• (5 Oct 2022) Republican members of the US House Financial Services Committee have asked the US Attorney General to provide them with the Department of Justice's assessment (as required by President Biden's March 2022 Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets) of whether legislative changes would be necessary to issue a central bank digital currency. The lawmakers have asked to be provided with the assessment and any corresponding legislative proposal by 15 October 2022. | Letter

APAC

India:             

• (7 Oct 2022) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) concept note on central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is intended to create awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the Digital Rupee in particular. It explains the objectives, choices, benefits, and risks of issuing a CBDC in India and sets out the RBI's approach towards the introduction of the CBDC.| Press release

Singapore:   

• (5 Oct 2022) The Monetary Authority of Singapore has launched the ESG Impact Hub, which is intended to spur co-location and collaboration between environment, social, governance (ESG) fintech start-ups and solution providers, financial institutions, and real economy stakeholders. | Press release

Europe

EU:  

• (5 Oct 2022) The EU Council's Committee of Permanent Representatives has endorsed and published the final compromise texts of the Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA) and the recast Regulation on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain cryptoassets. This follows the provisional agreements reached by EU Council and Parliament negotiators at the end of June. The texts still need to be formally approved, first by the EU Parliament plenary and then by the Council, before they can be published in the Official Journal.

Netherlands:

• (6 Oct 2022) The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) has issued a press release welcoming MiCA as an important step in the regulation of European crypto markets and arguing that the rapid developments in crypto markets make it essential to continue evaluating, tightening and expanding regulations.
• (16 Sep 2022) DNB Q&A describing policy on sanctions screening for (incoming and outgoing) crypto transactions. Under the Sanctions Act 1977 (Sanctiewet 1977) and the Regulation on Supervision pursuant to the Sanctions Act 1977 (Regeling toezicht Sanctiewet 1977), DNB supervises the internal control structures that crypto service providers must have in place to ensure compliance with sanctions regulations (see the Open Book on Supervision). To do so, DNB assesses the effectiveness of the procedures and controls aimed at ensuring compliance with sanctions regulations, including sanctions screening.| Press release

Spain:            

• (12 September 2022) A draft bill for a new Securities Markets and Financial Services Act has been made public which, among other things, would establish a legal regime for the representation of negotiable securities by means of distributed ledger technology systems. The draft Bill was approved by the Spanish Council of Ministers in June 2022, see also this Alerter: Finance Industry item.

UK:

• (11 Oct 2022) Bank of England (BoE), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) discussion paper (PRA DP5/22 | FCA DP22/4) on artificial intelligence and machine learning and BoE/FCA research note on machine learning in UK financial services 2022. Comments on the discussion paper are due by 10 February 2023.
• (29 Sep 2022) Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) response to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports July 2022 consultation on a pro-innovation approach for regulating artificial intelligence (AI). The CMA's response highlights the importance of equipping regulators with the appropriate tools to intervene against the most harmful practices of AI systems, welcomes the UK Government's support for voluntary regulatory fora such as the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum as a means of avoiding algorithmic harms from being missed as a result of gaps between regulators' priorities, and emphasising the importance of advocating a risk-based approach internationally, evolving that position as AI technology develops and matures.

EVENTS

Talking Tech event: The metaverse – legal and economic perspectives on a growing industry (Frankfurt, 19 October 2022): The metaverse has been described as the future of the internet – a digital world where we will live, work and play. Will our existing legal frameworks be fit-for-purpose? Members of our Clifford Chance Tech Group, together with Prof David Wuttke from the Technical University of Munich and Thomas Richter, in-house legal counsel technology at Deutsche Bank, will be available to provide you with a glimpse into some of the technological, commercial, and legal challenges the metaverse will bring. | You will also have the opportunity to try out various access options on site, such as a virtual reality headset. | For more information and to register, please see the event webpage.

Global Financial Markets Perspectives Series: Space Tech – a universe of ‘here and now’ investment opportunities (online, 8 November 2022): Space Tech is not just about futuristic colonies on Mars and asteroid-mining, it is also about the constellations of satellites that are already supporting so much of the tech here on earth, including ESG applications such as environmental monitoring. It is also critical infrastructure for the defence sector. Our panellists will discuss opportunities in the sector, New Space, financing considerations and the future direction of the industry. | To register, please see the event series registration 

Global Financial Markets Perspectives Series: The future of banking – can CBDCs and custody of digital assets change the financial markets? (online, 15 November 2022): In this session we will consider some use cases for Central Bank Digital Currencies and how they may impact the financial markets particularly when combined with digital assets. This session will provide practical insights for in-house lawyers on novel legal issues that arise from CBDCs and how the role of custodian of digital assets may be evolving. | To register, please see the event series registration form.