On 26 April 2021, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) published its key observations and good practices from a thematic review on the use of external information and data by authorised institutions (AIs) in their anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) control systems. Read more

Welcome to the March 2021 edition of our corporate crime update – our round up of developments in relation to corruption, money laundering, fraud, sanctions and related matters. Our update now covers a number of jurisdictions. Read more

On 15 March 2021, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued a consultation paper inviting comments on the proposed exemption framework (Branch Framework) for cross-border business arrangements between financial institutions in Singapore (Singapore FIs) which are head offices or branches (Singapore Offices) and their respective foreign branches or head offices (Foreign Offices). Read more

On 16 March 2021, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced (via a circular) that it will conduct a focused review of the incentive systems of retail banks’ front offices in the sale and distribution of banking, investment and insurance products. Read more

Operational resilience is the next phase in the evolution of financial services regulatory policy. Regulators’ expectations are increasing – but it’s an evolution rather than a revolution; firms – more specifically firms’ senior managers – must “join the dots” across a range of practical risk management and governance activities. To help keep you up to date on the upcoming regulatory expectations, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new #OperationalResilience hub. Read more

In our 24 February webinar, our cross-practice panel of experts from Hong Kong, Singapore and London will discuss operational resilience. This webinar will be of interest to senior management, legal, compliance, risk management, regulatory, data privacy, information security and corporate communications professionals who are responsible for managing, responding to and preventing significant disruptive incidents. Read more

In this blog post, we round-up forthcoming developments in the UK and at EU and International levels in financial services regulation which are expected for February 2021. Read more

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has released its long awaited FAQs regarding its 31 October 2019 circular on the use of external electronic data storage providers (EDSP Circular). While there are some aspects of the FAQs which we anticipate will create practical challenges and will require some careful analysis to implement, we generally consider the FAQs to be a significant step forward and to provide much needed flexibility for the industry. Read more