On 13 January 2020, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a report on Big Data and Advanced Analytics (BD&AA) in the banking sector. The reports aims to share knowledge on the current use of BD&AA by providing a background on this area, alongside key observations and outlining the key pillars and elements of trust that could be used to establish a framework for their use. The report is part of the EBA’s fintech roadmap project,…

The recording from our latest 40 minute briefing webinar is now available. In this webinar our London team provides their views on what 2020 will bring to the following sectors: Market infrastructure; Asset management; Wholesale and retail banking; and FinTech, open banking and payments. The webinar concludes with some thoughts on key trends from an investigations and enforcement perspective. The webinar can be accessed here (register first, and it should play automatically).…

On 7 January 2020, the Bank of England (BoE) published a Discussion Paper, Transforming data collection from the UK financial sector, to improve the timeliness and effectiveness of data collection from firms across the financial system. On the same date the FCA refreshed its Data Strategy setting out a transformation plan to become a highly data-driven regulator. The BoE has published its Discussion Paper in order to start a dialogue with regulated firms and…

Our 40 minute briefing on 8 January 2020 will be a webinar and will focus on what 2020 has in store for financial services firms. Further information on the webinar can be found here. Online attendance only – please do not come to our offices.…

On 24 December 2019, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) published the final version of its merchant survey questionnaire, alongside the non-confidential responses received as part of the PSR’s ongoing card-acquiring market review. For more details on the review, see our previous blog. The questionnaire provides a script of the merchant survey and contains questions regarding the use of card transactions and card-acquiring services, relationships with providers and how providers are chosen, switching and…

On 19 December 2019, the European Commission (Commission) published an inception impact assessment entitled ‘Directive/regulation establishing a European framework for markets in cryptoassets’. The impact assessment has been published alongside a public consultation requesting feedback on the current regulatory framework for cryptoassets as part of the Commission’s work to promote a new Digital Finance Strategy for the EU. The Commission states that the overarching problem in this area is the lack of legal certainty that…

On 17 December 2019, the European Central Bank (ECB) published its latest in focus paper which explores anonymity in central bank digital currencies. The paper discusses a proof of concept for anonymity in digital cash (referred to as “central bank digital currency”) that has been developed by the European System of Central Banks. The main thing that the prototype shows is that, in a simplified environment typical of a proof of concept, distributed ledger technology…