Clifford Chance

Welcome to this week's global fintech round-up, summarising fintech regulatory developments that have happened around the world along with our Clifford Chance fintech publications and upcoming events.

Details of these and previous developments can also be found on our Fintech Topic Guide on the Clifford Chance Financial Markets Toolkit.

CLIFFORD CHANCE BRIEFINGS AND MATERIALS

• (4 Nov 2024) Talking Tech article – UK data reform resurrected: How does the Data (Use and Access) Bill compare to its predecessor?
• (4 Nov 2024) Talking Tech article – China issues cyber data security regulations

SPOTLIGHT

Webinar - Data and cyber considerations for AI

Organisations developing, deploying or using AI systems and tools must navigate privacy, data protection and cybersecurity requirements alongside AI-specific regulations. These parallel, and at times overlapping, frameworks and rules raise new challenges but also enable fresh opportunities for organisations. In this webinar on 14 November 2024 hosted as part of our Global Financial Markets Perspectives: AI Series, our expert global panel will share practical and market insights at the intersection of these developments, including in the context of governance and compliance programmes, risk management and contractual negotiations.

To register, please see the event series registration form

GLOBAL LEGAL AND REGULATORY UPDATES, INDUSTRY GUIDANCE AND PUBLICATIONS

International

• (30 Oct 2024) Bank for International Settlements (BIS) working paper entitled 'Artificial intelligence (AI) and big holdings data: Opportunities for central banks'. | Webpage

Americas

US:

• (31 Oct 2024) Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) customer advisory alerting messaging app users to beware of schemes to defraud them of assets, specifically cryptoassets. | Press release

APAC

Singapore:

• (4 Nov 2024) The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced plans to advance tokenisation in financial services, including by: (i) forming commercial networks to deepen liquidity of tokenised assets; (ii) developing an ecosystem of market infrastructures;  (iii) fostering industry frameworks for tokenised asset implementation; and (iv) enabling access to common settlement facility for tokenised assets. Two industry frameworks developed by Project Guardian industry group members and intended to facilitate the broad based acceptance and implementation of tokenised assets by financial institutions have also been published: (i) the Guardian Fixed Income Framework (GFIF), which provides an industry guide to implementing tokenisation in Debt Capital Markets, and (ii) the Guardian Funds Framework (GFF), which provides a set of recommendations for industry best practices for tokenised funds. A Clifford Chance team advised on the APAC, EU and UK aspects of the GFIF. | Press release | UK FCA statement
• (30 Oct 2024) The MAS has announced the establishment of the Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN), which is intended to strengthen Singapore as a global fintech hub and enhance global connectivity for innovation in financial services. GFTN will replace the present Elevandi. | Press release

Europe

EU:

• (6 Nov 2024) European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) joint guidelines on the oversight cooperation and information exchange between the ESAs and the competent authorities under the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).
• (5 Nov 2024) Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) paper setting out a proposed vision and policy recommendations on the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and tokenisation in financial markets. The paper is AFME's contribution to the EU Commission’s call for submissions on issues and opportunities relating to the deployment of DLT-based infrastructure and services in the EU.
• (31 Oct 2024, published 6 Nov 2024) The EU Commission has adopted the following regulatory technical standards (RTS) under the Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA): RTS specifying the procedure for the approval of a cryptoasset white paper (C(2024)6914); RTS specifying the information to be included by certain financial entities in the notification of their intention to provide cryptoasset services (C(2024)6903); RTS on continuity and regularity in the performance of cryptoasset services (C(2024)7523); RTS specifying the methodology to estimate the number and value of transactions associated to uses of asset-referenced tokens and of e-money tokens denominated in a currency that is not an official currency of a Member State as a means of exchange (C(2024)6910); RTS specifying the conditions for the establishment and functioning of consultative supervisory colleges (C(2024)6911): and RTS specifying the information to be included in an application for authorisation as a cryptoasset service provider (C(2024)6904).

UK:

• (4 Nov 2024) The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced details of a two-day, in-person AI Sprint at its London offices on 29 and 30 January 2025, which is intended to help inform its regulatory approach to the use of AI in financial services. The deadline for applications is midnight on 9 December 2024. As part of its AI Lab, the FCA has also launched a new AI Input Zone on its website to gather stakeholders’ views about current and future uses of AI in UK financial services, as well as the financial services regulatory framework. Deadline for responses: 31 January 2025.
• (31 Oct 2024) FCA webpage setting out its insights, observations and key lessons from how firms responded to the July 2024 CrowdStrike outage and their preparedness to respond to future incidents.
• (31 Oct 2024) Speech by Bank of England (BoE) Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden on the novel features of Generative AI, and how the BoE can uphold financial stability whilst harnessing its potential benefits for economic growth.
• (31 Oct 2024) The deadline for responding to the BoE's July 2024 discussion paper on its approach to innovation in money and payments has now passed. Published responses to date include those from: AFME | CryptoUK | DPF | GBBC |  GDF/CCI | IRSG | UK Finance. Clifford Chance was delighted to support AFME and the IRSG with their responses.
• (30 Oct 2024) The Law Commission's Common Law and Commercial Law Team has published an interim FAQ document relating to electronic trade documents (ETDs) in private international law. Following the publication of its call for evidence on digital assets and ETDs in private international law in February 2024, the Law Commission has become aware that there are significant concerns amongst stakeholders on how the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 operates in the cross-border legal context. The FAQ document is intended to explain how the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 and other legislation inspired by the UN Model Law on Electronic Transferrable Records interact with private international law.
• (30 Oct 2024) UK Finance blog post entitled 'Quality data is required to maximise AI efforts'.
• (29 Oct 2024) House of Lords Library briefing paper on the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill | Webpage

EVENTS

• Global Financial Markets Perspectives Series: AI Series: Data and cyber considerations for AI (online, 14 November 2024): Organisations developing, deploying or using AI systems and tools must navigate privacy, data protection and cybersecurity requirements alongside AI-specific regulations. These parallel, and at times overlapping, frameworks and rules raise new challenges but also enable fresh opportunities for organisations. Our global panel will share practical and market insights at the intersection of these developments, including in the context of governance and compliance programmes, risk management and contractual negotiations. | To register, please see the event series registration form
• Global Financial Markets Perspectives Series: Digital bonds – evolution and scaling (London, 26 November 2024): The benefits of using blockchain or distributed ledger technology for bond issuances into the capital markets is a topic that has garnered strong interest in recent years. Our panellists will look at the latest legal, regulatory and market developments that have shaped the digital bond landscape, explore what the future for digital bonds may look like, and discuss how true scaling of the digital bond ecosystem may be achieved in the years to come. | To register, please see the event series registration form
• Global Financial Markets Perspectives Series: Outsourcing – new technologies, new regulations and new vulnerabilities (online, 10 December 2024): New technologies, major shifts in the global regulatory landscape, and the need for digital resilience require global enterprises to fundamentally rethink their outsourcing strategies and outsourcing relationships. In this session, we will look at the key trends and developments that are shaping the future of outsourcing and the strategies that organisations can adopt to meet these new challenges. | To register, please see the event series registration form