Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services Bite-Sized Issue 2 2026

14 QUICK LINKS AIFMD BENCHMARKS REGULATION CRYPTOASSETS FINTECH FUND LIQUIDITY MIFID II/MIFIR MONEY MARKET FUNDS OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE SUSTAINABLE FINANCE/ESG T+1 ASIA PACIFIC EUROPE NORTH AMERICA UNITED KINGDOM Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services Bite-Sized | Issue 2 | 2026 SFC and HKMA Jointly Consult on Standard Calculation Periods Under OTC Derivative Clearing Rules On 29 January 2026, the SFC and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued a joint consultation on standardising the calculation periods for each year under the Clearing Rules for the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives regulatory regime. Under the current approach that requires the central clearing of OTC derivative transactions, the existing list of calculation periods specified in the Clearing Rules needs to be updated regularly. The SFC said that, with the aim to increase the efficiency of the operation of the Clearing Rules, it and the HKMA propose to designate, once and for all, standard calculation periods for each year with effect from 1 March 2027. The consultation period ends on 27 February 2026. Link to Joint Consultation here ASIC Publishes Key Issues Outlook 2026 On 27 January 2026, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) published its Key Issues Outlook for 2026. The key issues outlined include: • Increased retail client exposure to private credit markets; • Operational failures by superannuation fund trustees leading to member harm; • Consumers losing their retirement savings through investments in high-risk products, including as a result of high-pressure sales tactics and inappropriate financial advice; • Advanced technology harming consumers (including agentic AI); • Cyber-attacks, data breaches and/or inadequate operational resilience and crisis management undermine market confidence and harm consumers; • Regulatory gaps related to emerging financial sector participants (digital assets, payments, users of AI) and others on the regulatory perimeter; • Poor insurance claims handling, particularly following extreme weather events; • Failure or significant outage resulting from the implementation of CHESS replacement or due to the ongoing use of the aging infrastructure of the current system; • Poor quality financial reporting, sustainability reporting and audit quality; and • Increased risk appetite in the banking sector in response to competitive pressures that results in consumer harm. Link to the Key Issues Outlook here Good Practices on Managing Operational Risk Associated with Trading Activities On 15 January 2026, the HKMA issued a circular sharing good industry practices that it had identified from its ongoing on-site examinations on the operational risk management of authorised institutions (AIs) in respect of their trading activities, with a view to assisting AIs in strengthening their controls and capabilities for managing relevant risks. According to the HKMA, AIs conduct various trading activities as part of their day-to-day business operations. These activities range from those of AIs’ treasury functions for managing balance sheets and liquidity, to more complex trading operations undertaken by some AIs for market-making and carrying out client-driven transactions. Operational risk events may arise from these activities, such as unauthorised trading, deal input errors (i.e. fat finger), rogue trading and settlement failures. Historical episodes indicated that such events could result in significant financial losses as well as severe reputational damages to a financial institution, and could have been avoided if the institution had put in place a robust framework for managing the risk.