Risk & Resilience

The Bundesbank's September 11, 2026 press release shows domestic bond issuance surged in July 2026, driven by federal government and credit institution issuance and heavy foreign investor demand. This is a statistical release, not a rule change, so it creates no new obligations. It does provide useful market context for compliance, treasury, and risk teams assessing liquidity, concentration, and funding conditions.

The ECB's 2026 reverse stress test found that banks need stronger risk data aggregation, board-led scenario planning, and more realistic assumptions about crisis management actions. Supervisors identified weak links between capital, liquidity, and operational impacts, as well as overreliance on mitigating measures that may be unavailable when many banks act at once. Compliance teams should expect continued supervisory scrutiny of geopolitical risk and capital planning frameworks.

It's planning season for many risk management and internal audit functions. CROs and CAEs are deciding where to spend their limited resources, what work to prioritize and what they hope to accomplish in the coming year. I have a question for them. Do you see yourselves in the decision and performance support business?

The Hong Kong SFC has concluded its consultation on amendments to the Securities and Futures (Stock Market Listing) Rules, confirming it will proceed with proposals to introduce continuing conditions on listing applications, post-listing conditions, information requisition powers, and removal of automatic exemptions for certain share issuances. These changes, expected to take effect in Q1 2027, expand the SFC's regulatory toolkit for both IPO and post-IPO oversight, requiring compliance teams supporting listed issuers and sponsors to reassess disclosure, governance, and monitoring processes.

An ECB Lamfalussy Fellowship working paper argues that pairing common EU debt with a non-defaultable common tax can benefit both fiscally strong and fiscally weak member states, rather than functioning as a one-way transfer. While this is academic research rather than policy, it signals the direction of thinking around a future permanent EU common borrowing capacity, which compliance and public policy teams at financial institutions operating in the EU should monitor.

Financial market infrastructures are expected to maintain sufficient equity-backed liquid assets to withstand losses arising from their business operations. An international assessment found problems with how some of those institutions were applying that requirement, prompting further work by two of the financial system's principal standard-setting bodies.

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has directed insurance and reinsurance companies to review their risk management arrangements after supervisory inspections uncovered weaknesses in risk assessment procedures, operational incident management, and business continuity planning.