Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services Bite-Sized Issue 3 | 2026

2 QUICK LINKS AI DIGITAL ASSETS EMIR FINTECH FSB IOSCO MIFID II/MIFIR SUSTAINABLE FINANCE/ESG ASIA PACIFIC EUROPE LUXEMBOURG NORTH AMERICA UNITED KINGDOM Global Trustee and Fiduciary Services Bite-Sized | Issue 3 | 2026 DIGITAL ASSETS ECON Publishes Draft Report on Digital Assets On 19 February 2026, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) published a draft report on ‘Digital Assets – Challenges for the competitiveness and integrity of the European Union’s (EU) Financial System’. In relation to crypto-assets the draft report: • Stresses the importance of strengthening data capabilities, regarding leverage in the crypto industry and interlinkages with the non-banking financial institutions sector; • Calls on several supervisory and regulatory authorities to strengthen the supervisory dialogue on significant multi-function groups (MFGs); underlines the need to align the MiCAR policy framework for significant non-bank MFGs; and • Regrets the role that crypto-assets play in evading anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regulations and sanctions; stresses the importance of finding a better balance between privacy and transparency in ‘know your customer’ standards and the monitoring of payments. On tokenisation , the draft report: • Notes that Recital 3 of Regulation (EU) 2022/858 defines the ‘tokenisation’ of financial instruments as the digital representation of financial instruments on distributed ledgers or the issuance of traditional asset classes in tokenised form to enable them to be issued, stored and transferred on a distributed ledger; • Welcomes the potential benefits of tokenisation for trading financial assets, such as increased efficiency and transparency, while noting that its vulnerabilities should be monitored; and supports the Bank for International Settlements in cross-border payment collaboration; and • Notes the ongoing discussions on the DLT pilot regime. The draft report also addresses stablecoins and other wider aspects, underlining that interoperability is crucial in digital finance, requiring, for instance, portable identity and verifiable credentials as enabling components of cross-network market infrastructure. Link to ECON Draft Report here SFC Launches Trading Initiatives to Boost Digital Asset Market Vibrancy in Hong Kong On 11 February 2026, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued new guidance to extend virtual asset (VA) services to margin financing for licensed brokers providing VA dealing services (VA brokers), and to set out a high-level framework to guide virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) in developing proposals for VA‑related leveraged products intended for professional investors. The SFC says that as part of its latest measures to expand product and service diversity under the ASPIRe Roadmap, the SFC is allowing VA brokers to offer VA financing to their securities margin clients, subject to the sufficiency of collateral and robust investor safeguards. The SFC states that this would enable margin clients with strong credit profiles and collateral to participate more actively in VA trading, thus enhancing the liquidity of Hong Kong’s market in a risk-controlledmanner. For licensed VATPs, the SFC says that it has set out, for the first time, a high-level framework to guide them in developing perpetual contracts, which are leveraged instruments, for offering exclusively to professional investors. This aims to support their risk management strategies and deepen liquidity in the underlying spot market. To ensure investor protection, transparent product design, clear disclosures and robust operational controls for these leveraged products are outlined. To further drive VA trading activity in Hong Kong, the SFC states that it permits affiliates of licensed VATPs to act as market makers on their platforms, provided that strong safeguards are in place to mitigate conflicts of interest. Explaining that participation of these affiliates should provide licensed VATPs with an additional avenue for liquidity. Link to SFC Announcement here