This article was first published in The Banker on 3 March 2023. Final decision yet to be made The world of money is changing. The received wisdom of “cash is king” has long been declining and the world is gradually moving to a more digitised banking space where digital deposits and payments have become dominant; … Read more

At 7am on 13 March 2023 Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited ("SVB UK"), the UK subsidiary of the US bank, was sold to HSBC UK Bank Plc ("HSBC") for £1. The use of these resolution powers was exercised under the Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited Mandatory Reduction and Share Transfer Instrument which came into force at 7am on 13 March 2023. We set out in this post a high-level overview of the powers exercised and what they mean. Read more

In this blog post, we round-up key forthcoming developments in the UK and at EU and International levels in financial services regulation which are expected to happen in March and April 2023. Read more

Yesterday, the FCA dropped yet another discussion paper (DP 23/2, the DP); this one announcing that the FCA has turned its mind to further changes that might be needed to the regime governing the UK's 2,600 asset managers. The context here is the forthcoming change in the UK's regulatory framework and the FCA's expanded remit that will flow from this and the eventual shift of firm-facing requirements from statute to regulatory rulebooks. Read more

Three years after publication of an initial legal statement on cryptoassets and smart contracts, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) has published a second legal statement (Statement) on the issuance and transfer of equity or debt securities using blockchain or other distributed ledger technology (DLT) under English law. Read more

In January 2023, HM Treasury ("HMT") published its statutory review of the Payments Services Regulations 2017 ("PSRs") ("PSRs Review"), alongside a call for evidence on the wider payments landscape, including on the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 ("EMRs") ("Payments CFE"). HMT requests feedback on the Payments CFE by 7 April 2023. Read more

Regulators around the world are focused on the operational resilience of financial institutions, financial market infrastructures and the financial system as a whole. One area of significant risk to the financial system are the significant dependencies of financial institutions on Critical Third Parties (CTPs), particularly in relation to the cloud and other Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services. Both the UK and the EU have advanced proposals for new regulatory frameworks in this area. Read more

The High Court has recently considered the impact of the UK sanctions against Russia on various aspects of litigation involving a sanctioned party: PJSC National Bank Trust v Mints [2023] EWHC 118 (Comm). Read more