Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services Bite-Sized Issue 6 2025

2 QUICK LINKS AIFMD BENCHMARKS REGULATION CBDC COSTS & CHARGES CRYPTOASSETS ETF FINTECH FUND LIQUIDITY IOSCO MIFID II/MIFIR OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE PRIIPS SIU SUSTAINABLE FINANCE/ESG T+1 ASIA PACIFIC NORTH AMERICA UNITED KINGDOM Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services Bite-Sized | Issue 6 | 2025 BENCHMARKS REGULATION European Parliament Adopts Amending Regulation On 6May 2025, the European Parliament (EP) adopted amendments to the Benchmarks Regulation aimed at protecting financial stability, while reducing administrative and regulatory burden. The EP says that the new rules should apply to critical benchmarks, significant benchmarks and certain commodity benchmarks, as well as climate-related benchmarks such as EU Climate Transition Benchmarks (EU CTB) and EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks (EU PAB), in order to assure adequate supervision. The spot foreign exchange benchmarks complying with certain criteria have also been kept in scope. The adopted text confirmed the threshold of a total average value of at least EUR 50 billion to define a significant benchmark, while introducing refinements tomethodology to calculate the threshold. The EP also states that other benchmarks will be subject to a voluntary supervision regime, provided, that they reached the threshold of EUR 20 billion. And to promote the use of common standards for climate-related benchmarks such as EU CTB or EU PAB and to ensure their appropriate supply in the EU, the EP states that benchmark administrators are encouraged to provide such benchmarks in the EU. Regarding ESG-related benchmarks, the EP says that the European Commission should specify the information, as well as the standard format to be used for references to ESG factors to enable market participants tomake well-informed choices and to ensure the technical feasibility of compliance. Also, the European Securities and Markets Authority has been given a supervisory role over administrators endorsing benchmarks provided in a third-country. The Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 19 May 2025, entered into force on 8 June and will apply from 1 January 2026. Link to Regulation (EU) 2025/914 here CBDC ECB Partners With Private Sector Through Digital Euro Innovation Platform On 5 May 2025, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced the establishment of an innovation platform to collaborate with European stakeholders in the context of the digital euro project. Divided into two workstreams – “pioneers” and “visionaries” – the innovation platform simulates the envisaged digital euro ecosystem, in which the ECB provides the technical support and infrastructure for European intermediaries to develop innovative digital payment features and services at European level. The pioneers workstream is investigating how conditional payments in digital euro (i.e., transactions that are made automatically when predefined conditions are met, such as the delivery of a package bought online) could be implemented from a technical standpoint. It is also developing potential use cases for day-to-day payments. The visionaries workstream is conducting research on new digital euro use cases and how they could help address societal challenges, such as digital financial inclusion. For instance, one use case is considering how the ability to open a digital euro wallet in any post office could guarantee free access to digital euro services, even for people without a bank account or access to digital devices. The ECB says that findings from both workstreams will be published in a report later this year. Link to Announcement here