Quantum update 69: United States CFTC Appoints Dr Patrick J. Schorno as Chief Economist | July 2026

United States CFTC Appoints Dr Patrick J. Schorno as Chief Economist

On 1 June 2026, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the appointment of Dr Patrick J. Schorno as Chief Economist. The appointment was announced by CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig. Dr Schorno will serve as economic adviser to the CFTC and will support economic analysis, regulatory cost-benefit analysis and research initiatives within the agency.

• Dr Schorno arrives with a specific pedigree in regulatory cost-benefit analysis, having served as Deputy Chief Economist at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, with earlier posts at Ally Financial and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
• Chairman Selig's own remarks frame the role explicitly around "CFTC and SEC harmonization efforts" — the appointment reads as a deliberate bridge for the two agencies' ongoing coordination on derivatives and digital asset market structure, not merely a staffing update.
• No transitional obligations arise for market participants; the appointment took effect immediately on 1 June 2026.

 

United States SEC Appoints Four New Members to Investor Advisory Committee

On 1 June 2026, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the appointment of four new members to its Investor Advisory Committee (IAC), reinforcing the SEC's ongoing focus on investor protection, market integrity and stakeholder engagement.

• The four appointees deliberately span sectors: private legal practice (Patrick Daugherty, Foley & Lardner), institutional investment management (Sheldon L. Ray Jr, formerly of Raymond James & Associates), academia (Adriana Z. Robertson, University of Chicago Law School) and technology-sector experience combined with a statutory advocacy seat (John Liu, representing senior citizen investors).
• Membership rises to thirteen; three appointees serve standard four-year terms, while Mr Liu's seat is tied to the IAC's designated senior-citizen representative function under section 39 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
• The IAC's remit already extends to disclosure standards, retirement savings and emerging issues including crypto-asset regulation — the broadened composition is likely to feed directly into the SEC's forthcoming digital asset market structure discussions.
• A further call for IAC applications is expected in late 2026 or early 2027, giving firms and individuals a future channel to seek Committee representation.

 

Australia: ASIC Proposes Consolidation of Financial Reporting and Auditing Relief Instruments

On 1 June 2026, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) proposed consolidating 17 financial reporting and auditing relief instruments into two new legislative instruments as part of its regulatory simplification programme. Stakeholders have been invited to make submissions on the proposed instruments by 10 July 2026.

• Fourteen separate financial-reporting relief instruments — covering matters as varied as stapled-entity reporting, rounding relief and electronic lodgment — would fold into a single Annual and Half-Year Reporting Instrument, and three auditing instruments into one Auditing Instrument, under Consultation Paper CS 54; this is presented as pure simplification, not new relief or new obligations.
• One substantive change is buried inside the consolidation: ASIC proposes removing requirements under sections 6(i), 6(s) and 6(v) of the existing ASIC Corporations (Audit Relief) Instrument 2016/784 — firms currently relying on those specific carve-outs should confirm the consolidated instrument preserves their position before it takes effect.
• Submissions close at 5:00 pm AEST on 10 July 2026 — a comparatively tight window given the scale of the exercise (17 instruments folding into 2).

 

US SEC Commissioner Peirce Signals New Crypto Regulatory Perimeter for DeFi, Open-Source Code and Blockchain Infrastructure

On 2 June 2026, US SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce delivered remarks entitled "Base Case: Remarks at the IC3 Blockchain Camp" at Princeton University, setting out a principles-based approach to determining where United States securities regulation should apply within the crypto and blockchain ecosystem.

• The operative test is control, custody and conduct rather than branding: a project calling itself "DeFi" will still be treated as centralised CeFi if it retains upgrade authority, governance control, transaction-approval rights or access gating — Commissioner Peirce is explicit that labels will not survive scrutiny of the underlying facts.
• A notable civil-liberties framing underpins the treatment of open-source code: publishing code is characterised as speech, and persons who do no more than write open-source code for others to use should not, on that basis alone, be required to register with the SEC.
• A practical risk gradient emerges from the remarks — passive information display and neutral infrastructure sit at the low-risk end, while interfaces that prepare, route or recommend transactions sit close to broker-dealer or exchange territory; firms building DeFi front-ends should map their own interface against this spectrum now, rather than waiting for a rule.
• As a speech rather than a rule, order or formal statement, it creates no binding obligation and no deadline — but it strongly previews how examination and enforcement staff are likely to analyse custody and control questions going forward, including for offshore projects with US-facing interfaces or users.

 

Australia: ASIC Updates Internal Dispute Resolution Data Dashboard with New Complaints Analytics Features

On 3 June 2026, ASIC announced updates to its Internal Dispute Resolution (IDR) data dashboard, incorporating complaints data reported by financial firms between 1 July and 31 December 2025.

• Two additions matter more than the dashboard refresh itself: a complainant demographics page (breaking complaints down by age group, gender and geographic location) and a downloadable dataset, together enabling firms to benchmark their own complaint-handling against sector-wide trends rather than only their own historical figures.
• Demographic data is deliberately withheld at individual-firm level, limiting reputational exposure for any single licensee while still supporting sector-wide analysis of complaint patterns.
• The dataset covers complaints open, received or closed between 1 July and 31 December 2025 — firms should check that their own reported figures for that window are accurately reflected before relying on the dashboard for benchmarking.

 

Hong Kong SFC and HKMA Finalise Amendments to OTC Derivatives Clearing Rules

On 5 June 2026, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued Consultation Conclusions on proposed amendments to the clearing framework governing over-the-counter derivative transactions. The revised framework is expected to take effect on 1 March 2027, subject to completion of the legislative process.

• The change is procedural rather than substantive: Hong Kong's US$20 billion mandatory clearing threshold is untouched, but the mechanism for setting future Calculation Periods moves from ad hoc legislative amendment to a permanent, self-executing calendar under the OTC Derivative Transactions Rules — two fixed periods each year (1 March–31 May and 1 September–30 November), each producing a Prescribed Day on the following 1 January or 1 July respectively.
• Industry support was unanimous — all six respondents, including the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the Hong Kong Association of Banks, backed the proposal, suggesting minimal friction as it moves through the legislative process.
• The practical benefit for in-scope firms is planning certainty: no more waiting on periodic legislative extensions simply to confirm that a future calculation period exists at all.
• The draft amendments go to the Legislative Council for negative vetting in Q3 2026, targeting a 1 March 2027 effective date.

 

Hong Kong SFC Revises Circular on Listed Structured Funds to Permit Single Stock Leveraged and Inverse Products Referencing Hong Kong Listed Stocks

On 5 June 2026, the Hong Kong SFC revised its Circular on Listed Structured Funds to expand the scope of authorised Single Stock Leveraged and Inverse Products to include highly liquid Hong Kong listed mega-cap stocks, building on the framework introduced on 23 January 2025.

• The headline liberalisation — Hong Kong-listed mega caps now qualify as underlyings for Single Stock L&I products, a class previously confined to overseas-listed mega caps — is bundled with a materially tighter safeguard regime: mandatory capacity monitoring and buffers, automatic trading suspension tied to the underlying stock's own halt status, and mandatory deleveraging and stop-loss mechanisms.
• Shares dually listed in Hong Kong and Mainland China, and pure Mainland-listed securities, remain excluded entirely — issuers cannot use this liberalisation as an indirect route into Mainland exposure.
• The growth data explains the timing: assets under management in overseas-referencing Single Stock L&I products have grown more than 302-fold to HK$106 billion since March 2025, with average daily turnover up more than 136-fold to HK$9.3 billion, and these products now account for roughly 80% of Hong Kong's entire L&I market by AUM — the regulatory expansion is following demand that has already materialised, not anticipating it.
• The revised circular took effect on 5 June 2026; no further transitional deadline applies.

 

United States SEC Establishes Joint Financial Data Standards Under the Financial Data Transparency Act 2022

On 8 June 2026, the SEC established joint data standards under the Financial Data Transparency Act of 2022 (FDTA), together with eight other federal financial regulators, creating a common framework for financial regulatory data across the United States.

• No new reporting obligation exists yet — this is deliberately a standards-setting rule rather than a reporting-change rule: nine agencies (SEC, Federal Reserve, CFTC, CFPB, Treasury, FDIC, FHFA, NCUA and OCC) have simply agreed a common vocabulary — LEI, UPI, CFI, ISO 8601 dates, GENC geographic codes and ISO 4217 currencies — that future agency-specific rulemakings may plug into.
• The most consequential single choice is the selection of the Legal Entity Identifier over the once-proposed Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI): the LEI is already embedded across securities, derivatives, banking and AML frameworks, so its formal FDTA adoption effectively locks it in as the cross-agency standard for counterparty identification going forward.
• Digital asset businesses are not named in the rule, but its direction of travel — machine-readable, non-proprietary, fully searchable regulatory data — maps directly onto reporting expectations already emerging for virtual asset service providers, stablecoin issuers and tokenised securities elsewhere; this is best read as the federal groundwork those future crypto-specific rules will likely sit on.
• No compliance deadline arises now; the trigger to watch for is the first agency-specific rulemaking (by the SEC, CFTC, Federal Reserve or others) that actually operationalises these standards into a reporting requirement.

 

United States SEC Proposes Rescission of Regulation NMS Trade-Through and Locked Market Rules

On 11 June 2026, the SEC proposed amendments to rescind Rules 611 and 610(e) of Regulation NMS, marking a potential shift in the regulation of United States equity markets. Public comments will be accepted for 60 days following publication in the Federal Register.

• This targets the single most litigated rule in Regulation NMS: Rule 611, the Trade-Through Rule in place since 2005, is proposed for outright repeal, alongside Rule 610(e)'s restrictions on locked and crossed quotations and related definitions in Rule 600.
• Chairman Atkins' framing — that the rule has produced "unintended consequences that have hindered rather than enhanced" market growth — signals the SEC now views two decades of trade-through protection as having entrenched fragmentation and driven venue proliferation, rather than curbed it.
• The knock-on effects are substantial and unresolved: best execution obligations, market-data revenue-sharing plans, self-regulatory organisation rulebooks and National Market System plans all reference Rule 611/610(e) machinery and would need consequential amendment if rescission proceeds.
• Comments close 17 August 2026 (60 days after Federal Register publication) — this is a genuine structural-reform consultation, not a technical tidy-up, and the SEC has invited feedback on the wider market structure consequences.

 

United States SEC Appoints John Moses as Director of Investor Education and Assistance

On 12 June 2026, the SEC announced the appointment of John Moses as Director of its Office of Investor Education and Assistance.

• Mr Moses moves from Acting Director (since 2016) to permanent Director — a continuity appointment rather than a change of direction for the office responsible for investor-facing education and fraud-prevention resources.
• His background is being used deliberately for tone-setting: a surface warfare officer with the United States Navy during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Stanford undergraduate and graduate degrees, and a Harvard Business School MBA, positioned around a service-oriented message for investor outreach.
• No action is required of regulated firms; the appointment is relevant chiefly as a signal of institutional continuity in the SEC's investor-protection messaging.

 

Dubai VARA Publishes AML/CFT Business Risk Assessment Guidance Following 2026 Thematic Review

On 12 June 2026, the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) published good practice guidance on AML/CFT Business Risk Assessments (BRAs) for licensed virtual asset service providers (VASPs), anchored to Rule III.D of the VARA Compliance and Risk Management Rulebook.

• The guidance's central proposition is blunt and worth quoting directly: a BRA "not informed by quantitative operational evidence is, at best, a judgement" — VARA is explicitly retiring narrative-only risk assessments across its entire licensed VASP population.
• Governance now demands documented Board-level challenge, not mere sign-off: Board approval must carry a dated record of substantive challenge to residual ratings, control assumptions and risk appetite, since approval at senior management level alone will fail supervisory review; internal audit (or an independent external party where audit capacity is limited) must separately validate the methodology.
• Eight specific data feeds must now visibly drive scoring in practice — customer risk distribution, alert-to-investigation conversion rates, STR/SAR trends, sanctions screening outcomes, product and geographic flow volumes, and offboarding/EDD statistics among them — meaning ratings that fail to move when this underlying data moves will themselves become a supervisory red flag.
• Proliferation financing is elevated out of the general ML/TF score into its own distinct category, with a mandated operational chain running from the inherent PF rating through EOCN registration, without-delay asset freezing under Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2020, and CNMR/PNMR reporting to the UAE FIU via goAML.
• Every licensed VASP has a quarterly review falling due within three months of the 12 June 2026 guidance date under Rule III.D.3 — that review is, in effect, the compliance deadline, and VASPs whose BRAs still blend PF into a combined financial-crime score should treat separating it out as the single most urgent fix before the next cycle.

 

Singapore: MAS Highlights June 2026 FATF Statement on DPRK, Iran and Myanmar AML/CFT Risks

On 13 June 2026, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) drew attention to the June 2026 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Statement addressing high-risk and monitored jurisdictions for anti-money laundering purposes.

• DPRK and Iran sit under active FATF countermeasures; Myanmar sits one tier below, subject only to enhanced due diligence — MAS is explicit that these are not equivalent categories, and Singapore financial institutions (FIs) should calibrate their response accordingly rather than treating all three jurisdictions identically.
• Iran's inclusion carries fresh urgency this cycle: the FATF statement flags the snapback of United Nations Security Council sanctions tied to Iran's nuclear non-proliferation obligations, meaning FIs' Iran-related sanctions screening must now reflect reinstated UN measures, not merely the pre-existing FATF call for countermeasures.
• For Myanmar, MAS draws a deliberate humanitarian carve-out: enhanced due diligence must not disrupt flows of funds for humanitarian assistance, legitimate non-profit organisation activity or remittances — a rare explicit instruction to calibrate EDD so that it does not become a de facto blockade.

 

United States SEC Announces 2026 Compliance Outreach Seminar for Investment Advisers and Investment Companies

On 16 June 2026, the SEC will host a virtual Compliance Outreach Program Regional Seminar for investment advisers and investment companies through its New York Regional Office (NYRO).

• Two sessions are the ones worth diary-blocking: the FY2026 examination-priorities session (led by NYRO's Michael O'Donnell and Amritpal Sidhu) and the Division of Enforcement's Asset Management Unit update (led by Corey Schuster and Salvatore Massa) — both are staffed by the specific personnel setting the tone for what NYRO will actually examine and pursue this year.
• A dedicated panel on examinations of newly registered firms offers a rare direct line into first-exam expectations, of particular value to any firm that has recently registered or is about to.
• Panellist questions are due by 12 June 2026, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time — ahead of the seminar itself, which runs 9:15 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time on 16 June 2026.

 

Taiwan FSC Issues Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration Guide for Financial Institutions

On 18 June 2026, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) announced its Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration Reference Guide for the Financial Industry, providing financial institutions with a phased framework for addressing cybersecurity risks arising from advances in quantum computing.

• Two named threats anchor the entire framework: "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" (adversaries archiving encrypted data today against future quantum decryption) and "Trust Now, Forge Later" (today's digital signatures and certificates becoming forgeable) — both attack data and signatures that may remain legally or commercially significant for years to come.
• The FSC's most concrete requirement is a Cryptographic Bill of Materials — an inventory mapping every cryptographic asset to the business function and external dependency it supports; without this inventory, institutions have no basis for sequencing migration or even identifying what is actually at risk.
• The timetable is long but deliberately front-loaded with governance work: 2026–2027 covers inventory-building and crypto-agility groundwork, 2027–2029 covers piloting, and migration of high-risk and critical systems continues through 2035 — institutions treating this as a problem for the 2030s risk reaching the pilot phase with no completed inventory to pilot against.
• Not yet a binding technical standard, but the FSC is explicit that manual certificate management, weak cipher suites and hard-coded cryptographic keys are practices requiring early remediation regardless of the long overall runway.

 

United States SEC and CFTC Seek Public Comment on Harmonising Swap and Security-Based Swap Data Reporting

On 18 June 2026, the SEC and the CFTC jointly issued a Request for Comment entitled 'Joint Request for Comment on Swap and Security-Based Swap Data Reporting', seeking industry feedback on potential reforms to swap and security-based swap reporting frameworks under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act.

• The consultation surfaces a striking asymmetry the agencies now want resolved: CFTC swap reporting currently demands up to 128 data elements, materially more than the SEC's narrower security-based swap framework — firms operating across both regimes have effectively been living with two very different reporting burdens for economically comparable products.
• The SEC is openly asking whether it should adopt the CFTC's technical specifications wholesale, which would be a considerably more consequential harmonisation route than meeting in the middle.
• Blockchain-executed or blockchain-recorded swaps receive their own explicit question — one of the clearest signals yet that the agencies view on-chain derivatives infrastructure as needing bespoke reporting treatment rather than being read into existing rules by analogy.
• Comments are due within 60 days of Federal Register publication; the agencies have specifically requested empirical, data-driven submissions rather than position statements.

 

United States SEC and CFTC Seek Public Comment on Swap, Security-Based Swap and Event Contract Definitions

On 18 June 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly issued a further Request for Comment entitled 'Joint Request for Comment on Further Definition of "Swap" and "Security-Based Swap" and on Alternative Compliance', seeking public input on whether existing Title VII definitions and jurisdictional boundaries remain fit for modern market structures.

• Event contracts and prediction markets are the real target of this consultation, not swaps in general: the agencies are asking, in substance, whether a "will X happen" contract is a swap, a security-based swap, a security, or none of the above — a question current rules and case law answer inconsistently.
• Also on the table is a genuine alternative-compliance mechanism rather than a mere definitional tidy-up: whether compliance with one agency's regime could satisfy the other's substantially similar requirements for products straddling both securities and derivatives frameworks.
• This is the first full revisit of the Title VII product-classification architecture since it was built in 2012 — the practical stakes are jurisdictional certainty for any product, including tokenised or on-chain instruments, sitting at the securities/derivatives boundary.
• Comments are due within 60 days of Federal Register publication.

 

European Union: ESMA Orders Unauthorised Crypto-Asset Service Providers to Wind Down as the MiCA Transitional Period Ends on 1 July 2026

On 23 June 2026, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a public statement on unauthorised crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), addressing the end of the transitional period under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) on 1 July 2026.

• This is not a policy statement but an operational order dressed as guidance: unauthorised CASPs must freeze onboarding and marketing immediately, restrict all activity to exit-only transactions, and publish a client communication plan naming an automatic close-out date for clients who fail to act — irrespective of whether a Member State has adjusted its national law to MiCA.
• AML/CFT obligations explicitly do not wind down with the business: customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening and suspicious transaction reporting must run at full strength through the very last transfer, precisely because a closing venue processing concentrated outflows against a public deadline is a prime laundering opportunity.
• Two structural loopholes are closed at once: non-EU platforms cannot recharacterise EU client order flow as "B2B infrastructure" to escape the perimeter, and EU-authorised CASPs cannot outsource custody to an unauthorised non-EU custodian — authorisation is now required end to end across the custody chain.
• Coordinated cross-Member-State enforcement is explicit: ESMA, national competent authorities, the European Banking Authority and the EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority are acting in concert specifically so that firms cannot arbitrage between national regulators post-deadline — the transitional period ended 1 July 2026, making this a live enforcement posture rather than a future one.

 

United States SEC Appoints Kathleen Hutchinson as Director of Office of International Affairs

On 24 June 2026, the SEC appointed Kathleen M. Hutchinson as Director of the Office of International Affairs, the division responsible for advising the Commission on international regulatory policy and cross-border supervisory and enforcement cooperation.

• Twenty-three years at the SEC, and eighteen within the Office of International Affairs itself (rising from Assistant Director through Acting Director since January 2025), mean this converts an already-functioning acting leadership into permanent continuity rather than installing a new direction.
• The appointment is framed explicitly around "increasing global coordination on digital assets" — a signal that cross-border enforcement and supervisory cooperation on crypto-asset matters is a named priority for the Office going forward.
• No action is required of market participants; the appointment is relevant chiefly as a continuity signal for firms tracking the SEC's cross-border enforcement cooperation posture.

 

United States SEC Terminates Investment Company Registration of BlackRock Collateral Trust

On 24 June 2026, the SEC issued an Order under section 8(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 declaring that BlackRock Collateral Trust has ceased to be an investment company.

• The timeline is a useful precedent for the section 8(f) deregistration pathway generally: application filed 18 December 2025, amended 12 May 2026, noticed via Investment Company Act Release No. 36193 on 29 May 2026, no hearing requested, and the Order issued with immediate effect on 24 June 2026 — roughly seven months start to finish.
• This is not an enforcement action; the Division of Investment Management issued the Order under delegated authority once satisfied that the trust had genuinely ceased operating as an investment company, with no hearing requests received.
• Any entity contemplating winding down its own investment company registration now has a concrete, recent timeline against which to plan its own application.

 

Latvijas Banka Licensed Three Crypto-Asset Firms in June 2026: MiCA Licences Reveal the Capital Trigger for CASPs

On 25 June 2026, Latvijas Banka licensed Hodleris SIA and Bleap SIA to provide crypto-asset services, following the licensing of SIA AlphaRoute on 18 June 2026, bringing to nine the number of CASPs authorised by Latvijas Banka under MiCA.

• The real story is a capital-class myth-buster: firms routinely assume that more services require a higher capital class, but these three licences prove custody and pure exchange services sit within the identical €125,000 Class 2 floor under Article 67(1)(a) and Annex IV of MiCA — only trading platform operation (as authorised for SIA AlphaRoute) pushes a firm into the €150,000 Class 3 tier.
• Hodleris SIA's four authorised services, including custody and administration, cost it nothing extra in capital terms over Bleap SIA's two exchange-only services — the practical lesson for applicants is to scope the application to the actual business model rather than over-applying "to be safe", which only locks up unnecessary capital.
• Latvijas Banka's process is now a genuine competitive advantage for EU market entry: free pre-licensing consultation, a €2,500 application review fee (among the lowest in the EU), a 25-working-day completeness check and a 40-working-day substantive assessment — a complete file can clear in roughly 65 working days, though an incomplete filing resets the completeness clock entirely on resubmission.
• Nine CASPs are now licensed in Latvia, each able to passport services across all 27 Member States from a single authorisation; firms weighing where to seek MiCA authorisation should weigh processing speed alongside fees and the ongoing annual supervision fee (up to 0.6% of gross crypto-asset income, minimum €3,000).

 

Singapore MAS Establishes Future of Finance Institute as Part of a Wider Strategy for Trusted Innovation

On 25 June 2026, Singapore MAS announced the establishment of the Future of Finance Institute, a coordinating body designed to accelerate the adoption of frontier financial technologies, with an initial focus on artificial intelligence and tokenisation, as set out in a related speech delivered by Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong on the same date.

• The Institute is less a new initiative than a coordination layer placed over work already underway — the MindForge AI Risk Management Toolkit, PathFin.ai, Project Guardian and Project Orchid — reorganised into four capabilities: a knowledge hub, an innovation garage, industry sandboxes, and implementation toolkits.
• The most compliance-relevant element is the Programmable Compliance Toolkit: embedding transfer restrictions, investor eligibility and settlement controls directly into a tokenised asset's code, shifting part of compliance from post-transaction monitoring to pre-transaction, built-in control — a genuine design-level change for compliance teams, not merely a policy statement.
• AI governance is treated as a workforce issue as much as a technology one: local banks are expected to act as "lighthouse institutions" retraining staff for agentic AI oversight, with MAS explicit that human accountability cannot disappear simply because a workflow becomes automated.
• A faster consultation pathway for non-traditional retail funds was flagged in the same announcement, alongside PayNow Generation 2 payment-rail enhancements — both worth watching as part of the same broader strategic direction.

 

Australia: ASIC Extends Crypto No-Action Position for Digital Asset Businesses to 30 September 2026

On 25 June 2026, ASIC issued an updated class no-action letter for digital asset businesses, superseding and extending its earlier position dated 29 October 2025 and setting a new deadline of 30 September 2026 for qualifying steps.

• The extension is paired with a scope expansion many firms may miss: it now explicitly covers authorised representative and intermediary arrangements under an AFS licence holder, not merely direct AFSL applicants.
• Market Licence and Clearing and Settlement facility applicants face a materially more demanding qualifying step than AFSL applicants: written notification to ASIC plus attendance at a licensing pre-meeting, both by 30 September 2026, followed by lodgement of the application within 12 months — simply expressing intent will not suffice here.
• The exclusions matter as much as the inclusions: crypto lending or earn products, most non-cash payment facilities, and derivatives other than wrapped tokens remain outside the no-action position entirely, so firms in these categories cannot rely on the extension at all.
• Approximately 30 licence applications have been lodged since October 2025, and ASIC expressly frames the position as a policy decision it can withdraw or revise at any time — firms should treat the 30 September 2026 deadline as firm, not indicative.

 

United States SEC and CFTC Seek Comment on Harmonising Portfolio Margining and Cross-Margining Frameworks

On 26 June 2026, the SEC and CFTC issued a joint request for public comment on potential approaches to further implement and harmonise portfolio margining and cross-margining frameworks across securities, security-based swaps, futures, swaps and related positions.

• The core inefficiency being targeted is concrete: firms holding economically offsetting positions across separate securities and derivatives accounts currently cannot net them for margin purposes, forcing excess collateral to sit idle without a corresponding safety benefit.
• Resolving this touches genuinely hard structural questions — customer property segregation, insolvency priority and differing clearinghouse risk models — rather than a simple margin-formula adjustment, which is why the agencies have asked for empirical submissions rather than position statements.
• The consultation is relevant across an unusually broad set of participants: broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, swap dealers, security-based swap dealers, clearing agencies, derivatives clearing organisations, proprietary trading firms and institutional investors with cross-asset books should all be assessing their own collateral-drag exposure now.
• Comments should be submitted by the stated public comment deadline, with the agencies specifically seeking data-driven analysis on margin efficiency, collateral usage and operational cost.

 

United Kingdom FCA Finalises Cryptoasset Regime

On 30 June 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) finalised the United Kingdom cryptoasset regime, comprising PS26/9 (admissions, disclosures and market abuse), PS26/10 (stablecoin issuance), PS26/11 (regulated cryptoasset activities), PS26/12 (prudential requirements) and PS26/13 (Handbook application), made under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/102).

• The regime's real shape lies in its dates rather than its content: the authorisation gateway opens 30 September 2026, savings provisions protect firms that apply by 28 February 2027 while their application is determined, but the full regime does not commence until 25 October 2027 — firms that miss the window may need to cease relevant activities entirely until authorised.
• Stablecoins receive the most structurally significant treatment in the package: full backing and par redemption under statutory trust, a permitted 5% excess-backing buffer, and removal from the restricted mass-market investment classification — effectively normalising qualifying stablecoins as a mainstream retail asset class rather than a high-risk product.
• New CASS 17 custody rules introduce technology-agnostic treatment of private key management directly into FCA custody regulation for the first time, while DeFi arrangements are brought into scope only where an identifiable controlling entity exists — leaving genuinely decentralised protocols outside scope pending dedicated guidance later in 2026.
• Market abuse receives a bespoke regime (the Market Abuse Regime for Cryptoassets) rather than a bolt-on to existing rules, with the FCA stating plainly that it expects cryptoasset market abuse risk to run higher than in other markets — an explicit signal of where supervisory attention will concentrate first.
• Existing MLR registrations will not convert automatically — arguably the single most consequential operational detail for firms already active in the UK crypto space, since it means a fresh authorisation process regardless of current registration status.