Finance, Banking & Insurance

EU – October 27, 2026 -- The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA) has published its Annual Work Programme for 2027. It lists digital operational resilience, technological innovation, sustainable finance, securitisation and cross-sectoral risk monitoring as the five key priorities for the EU financial sector.

ESAs continue DORA oversight of critical ICT third-party providers

Under the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), the three authorities will continue oversight of critical ICT third-party service providers. They will also work to strengthen the financial sector's preparedness against cyber threats. Financial institutions that depend on external technology vendors remain within the supervisory scope.

European Union – October 27, 2026 -- National authorities across the European Economic Area (EEA) imposed more than 950 administrative sanctions and measures in 2025, with administrative fines totaling almost €82 million, according to the third Sanctions Report from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

The number of sanctions and measures was stable compared with the past two years. The report also records an increased use of settlements.

Market abuse and MiFID breaches dominate enforcement activity

As in previous years, enforcement focused mainly on breaches of the Market Abuse Regulation and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation.

Germany, France and Spain account for two thirds of fine value

Enforcement remained concentrated in a small number of jurisdictions. Germany, France and Spain together accounted for two thirds of the total value of administrative fines across the EEA.

European Union – October 27, 2026 -- The EU will switch to T+1 settlement on 11 October 2027, and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) says the regulatory framework is now complete. ESMA is calling on market participants to finalise technical preparations, assess readiness across their entire ecosystems and start testing across the trading and settlement chain as soon as possible.

First compliance deadline for allocations and confirmations falls on 7 December 2026

Investment firms and their clients must comply with the new allocation and confirmation requirements from 7 December 2026. From that date, the amended RTS on Settlement Discipline makes two things mandatory:

- electronic, standardised communication channels and international messaging standards;
- machine-readable communication methods, except during temporary technical disruptions.

European Union – October 27, 2026 -- The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has finalised its revised Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) guidelines on delaying the disclosure of inside information, adding five legitimate interests that issuers can cite to justify a delay.

Under MAR, issuers must disclose inside information concerning them as soon as possible, so that investors are informed and insider dealing is prevented. Issuers may delay disclosure in specific circumstances to avoid prejudicing their legitimate interests. The guidelines give issuers a non-exhaustive list of such interests. The update completes the revised regulatory framework.

Five new legitimate interests follow public consultation

After a public consultation, ESMA added five situations in which a delay may be justified:

EU – October 27, 2026 -- The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has defined the conditions that providers and users of post-trade risk reduction (PTRR) services must meet for certain OTC derivative transactions to be exempt from the clearing obligation under EMIR 3.

ESMA's final report sets requirements for PTRR providers and the exemption

The final report specifies the elements and requirements of PTRR services. It covers the information provided to participants, how exercises are carried out, the controls providers must have in place, record-keeping, and how use of the exemption will be monitored.

ESMA says the rules are meant to facilitate use of PTRR services. They also aim to prevent the exemption from being used to circumvent the clearing obligation, keeping its use within the conditions laid down in EMIR 3.

European Union – October 27, 2026 -- The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has withdrawn or amended several Questions and Answers (Q&As) covering market structure under MiFID II, the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) and the Short Selling Regulation (SSR), removing guidance it considers outdated, duplicative or no longer relevant.

ESMA targets Q&As overtaken by legislative amendments and established practice

The review is part of ESMA's Simplification and Burden Reduction (SBR) initiative. It focused on Q&As made redundant by legislative amendments already reflected in market practice, and on those covered by other ESMA guidance.

Global – October 27, 2026 -- Eagleview, which has supplied aerial imagery and property intelligence to insurers for more than two decades, argues that carriers should measure operational efficiency by how much they know before sending anyone into the field, not by expense reduction alone. Patrick Gill, the company's Senior Vice President and General Manager for Insurance & Commercial Solutions, outlines the case in a new commentary.

AI queries compress weeks of data science work into minutes

Gill says AI lets carriers merge large volumes of disparate data and query it in natural language within minutes. Claims leaders can ask which older roofs sit inside a hail path, which insured properties were already deteriorating before a storm, and where experienced adjusters should deploy first. He says these decisions directly affect claim severity, customer satisfaction and operating expense.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – October 27, 2026 -- Eagleview's AI-powered Horizon platform completed portfolio-wide wildfire damage assessments in minutes that previously took weeks, the company said at its Property Claims Leadership Forum in Half Moon Bay, where it also released a white paper on AI-driven underwriting and claims.

Catastrophe frequency has more than doubled the long-term average

The U.S. averaged 23 weather and climate disasters per year over the past five years, each costing more than $1 billion in claims, according to NOAA. The long-term average is about nine. Global insured catastrophe losses reached $107 billion in 2025, per Swiss Re, and have risen 5-7% a year in real terms over the long run. Wildfires, storms and floods accounted for a record 92% of the 2025 total, and wildfire is the fastest-growing risk, with insured losses climbing an estimated 12% a year.

Europe – October 27, 2026 -- The European Banking Authority (EBA) has opened a call for papers for its 13th Annual Research Workshop, "Boundaries of Banking Regulation", with a submission deadline of Friday 5 July 2024.

EBA targets policy-oriented, preferably empirical, research

The 2024 EBA Policy Research Workshop will examine policies that can ensure innovation and sustainability amid competition and risk arbitrage, while preserving financial stability. The EBA says the boundaries of banking regulation raise questions about whether the present regulatory regime is adequate.

Researchers from supervisory authorities and central banks are especially encouraged to submit papers for presentation.

Five topics focus on non-bank finance and digital technology

The EBA lists five priority areas for submissions:

Global – October 27, 2026 -- Routing deterministic reconciliation work to an Alteryx One workflow cut token consumption by up to 95%, a 20x reduction, in a benchmark run by financial services consultancy NextWave, an Alteryx partner.

NextWave tested a 120-trade Product Control reconciliation two ways

The workload was a daily front-office-to-back-office reconciliation. It validated open trades, valuations, risk and cash balances across 120 trades, then explained differences and proposed next steps.

In the first run, an LLM received the front-office and back-office files directly and compared them unaided. In the second, the LLM called the Front Office Back Office Data Reconciliation workflow on Alteryx One through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Alteryx executed the comparison logic, and the LLM interpreted the output and recommended next steps.