Issue 39
January 2026
Welcome to the MBA's News Digest!
Perspectives 2026: Interview Business Magazine
8 January 2026
À l’heure où le secteur bancaire mondial est bousculé par la digitalisation, l’intelligence artificielle, les exigences réglementaires et les incertitudes géopolitiques, le secteur bancaire se trouve à un tournant stratégique. Solide mais confronté à de nouveaux défis de compétitivité, de talents et de transition climatique, il doit accélérer sa mutation pour rester un pilier du centre financier. Le Chief Executive Officer de la Mauritius Bankers Association, Daniel Essoo, se livre à Business Magazine.
Basel Institute - Developing blockchain intelligence standards and interoperability: a critical need to fight financial crime in the digital age
24 November 2025
‘The absence of standardisation and interoperability among blockchain intelligence tools has emerged as a critical challenge for all stakeholders working on preventing and countering financial crime. Incompatibilities manifest across multiple dimensions: data formats vary between platforms, identical concepts are described using different terminologies, computational methods such as address clustering follow divergent approaches, and user interfaces lack consistency.’
Basel Institute - Crypto: the ultimate enabler of corruption?
27 November 2025
‘As cryptoassets and other blockchain-based tokens enter the mainstream, alarm bells are ringing about the risks of their misuse. The technology is neutral in itself, but like any mechanism to transfer value, it can and does facilitate a wide range of crimes. And it’s not just scams, hacks and ransomware attacks. Cryptoassets are now seen in practically all crime types, from drug trafficking and terrorist financing to sanctions evasion, and increasingly as a tool for laundering the proceeds of those crimes. When it comes to the links between crypto and corruption, research and closed case examples are still scant. But since both are important enablers of crime, it’s vital to better understand how they intersect.’
UK - Bank of England launches consultation on regulating systemic stablecoins
10 November 2025
‘The Bank of England (the Bank) has today published a consultation paper (CP) setting out its proposed regulatory regime for sterling-denominated systemic stablecoins. Such stablecoins are a new type of digital money designed to maintain a stable value and could be used for retail payments and wholesale settlement in the future. This marks a significant step in preparing for a future where new forms of digital money may be widely used for payments alongside existing ones, offering valuable choice for the public.’
UK - Bank of England, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Bank of Thailand to explore synchronised FX settlement across borders
13 November 2025
‘The Bank of England, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Bank of Thailand announced a collaboration to explore the technical and policy implications of settling foreign exchange (FX) transactions using synchronised settlement mechanisms. Building on insights from Project Meridian FX, this collaboration will test synchronised FX settlement across a diverse technical and institutional landscape. In the first instance, the experiments will leverage simulated versions of participating central banks’ Real Time Gross Settlement systems and Distributed Ledger Technology-based settlement environments to test: Interoperability between the systems of the participating central banks; Complex, multilateral use cases involving different types of settlement infrastructure.’
UK - PRA confirms FSCS deposit limit to be increased to £120,000 from 1 December
18 November 2025
‘From the start of December, UK bank customers will benefit from an increase to the maximum amount they would be reimbursed for if their bank were to fail. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has today confirmed the deposit protection limit, which applies to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, will protect up to £120,000 of a depositor’s money should their bank, building society or credit union fail. This increases the limit from the current £85,000 which was set in 2017. It is also more than the previous PRA proposal of £110,000, which has been changed in light of consultation feedback and to reflect the latest inflation data. This increase in the deposit protection limit is the latest in a series of regulatory thresholds to be updated by the PRA, ensuring the rulebook is modernised and fit for today’s circumstances.’
Luxembourg - Verification of Payee: consolidation in Europe and strong adoption
28 November 2025
‘Luxembourg’s financial sector introduced VoP on 9 October 2025, completing a demanding project within a short timeframe. As outlined in our previous publications: Verification of Payee (VoP): What to expect and how to prepare; Verification of Payee successfully implemented across Luxembourg’s financial sector. The transition required significant technical upgrades and coordination across banks and payment providers. Initial feedback from national stakeholders shows that: 60% of checks result in a full match, 19% in a close match, 14% in a no match, 7% in a “verification not possible” outcome. These figures underline the importance of accurate beneficiary naming, both for consumers and businesses. Beneficiary lists and invoices should be reviewed to ensure that the account name corresponds to what is registered by the bank.’
Luxembourg - Luxembourg launches a national action plan to strengthen financial education at school
3 December 2025
‘On 2 December 2025, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Education, Children and Youth (MENJE) presented a national action plan designed to reinforce financial education throughout the Luxembourg school system, through a coherent and cross-cutting (transversal) approach embedded across the learning journey. Rather than being taught as a standalone subject, financial education will be addressed across several disciplines and learning activities. The objective is clear: help young people build the skills and reflexes they need to make informed everyday decisions involving money, avoid over-indebtedness, and remain critical in the face of increasingly digital financial risks. This national approach forms part of a broader European context, including the European financial competence framework for children and young people developed jointly by the European Commission and the OECD. It aims to move beyond one-off initiatives by embedding financial education in a coherent and progressive manner across the full educational pathway.’
Luxembourg - Digital Omnibus: The European Commission’s proposed simplification
4 December 2025
‘The most immediate element of the European Commission’s new Digital Package is the Digital Omnibus, which proposes targeted amendments to existing EU rules on data, cybersecurity, privacy and artificial intelligence. Its stated objective is to simplify requirements, reduce fragmentation, and make compliance more workable for organisations operating across the Single Market. On 19 November 2025, the European Commission published this Digital Package as a set of three components: the Digital Omnibus, the Data Union Strategy, and a proposal for European Business Wallets. Together, these initiatives aim to simplify the EU’s digital regulatory environment, reduce administrative burden, and improve the availability and usability of data across the EU.’
Swiss - Open finance becomes a reality: multibanking launches for retail customers
5 December 2025
‘Retail customers can now bundle accounts with multiple banks together and view them in a single app. This has been made possible by the cooperation of more than 30 banks and fintech companies. The banks provide the necessary data interface. Customers can thus input their financial information directly into other banks’ or third parties’ apps, for example to analyse their spending or plan a budget. This infrastructure also forms a basis for further promising use cases, for instance with regard to pensions. By integrating data from all three pillars of the pension system into existing e-banking and mobile banking systems, customers could keep an overview of their complete retirement savings situation at all times. This would be technically possible, but it would require pension funds and banks to share data with each other. The banks have now laid a foundation for this.’
Swiss - If it's stablecoins, then please use Swiss francs
3 December 2025
‘The rapid growth of stablecoins as well as international initiatives to regulate them have prompted many sceptics to reconsider their benefits and acceptance. Where rejection and resistance once prevailed, the focus is now on rules for issuing and using stablecoins in a legally secure manner. The view that stablecoins are here to stay appears to be gaining traction, as shown by a number of projects from traditional financial market players. For example, SWIFT, the global network used by banks for international payments, wants to create a blockchain-based infrastructure or “shared ledger” to transfer tokenised assets internationally.’
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