Mexican lawmakers have passed amendments to the General Law on Negotiable Instruments and Credit Transactions and the General Law of Credit Organizations and Auxiliary Credit Activities. These amendments allow the issuance of digital versions of credit instruments, such as certificates of deposit, promissory notes, bills of exchange and checks.
Excerpt: This update focuses particularly on the expansion of scope to domestic money transfer services, cross-border money transfer services and digital payment token services, and examines who are the persons affected by such expansion, as well as what needs to be done by such affected persons in order to benefit from transitional arrangements and continue operations.
Excerpt: On 5 December 2023, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Code of the Philippines (“PPP Code”) was enacted into law. The PPP Code was enacted to further the State’s policy to provide an enabling environment for the private sector to mobilize its resources to finance, design, construct, operate, and maintain infrastructure or development projects and services. The PPP Code provides for, among others, (i) a unified framework for both national and local PPP projects, (ii) stricter timelines for the evaluation and approval of PPP projects, and (iii) updated thresholds and requirements for approval of national and local PPP projects.
While not new, AI is one of the key drivers of change and could boost productivity and cut costs. The use of distributed ledger technology is creating new products and services such as central bank digital currencies that could bring the unbanked to the financial mainstream. And the use of biometrics authentication promises to enhance the security available to users. While quantum computing remains beyond the next decade, it could have wide-ranging benefits to financial institutions but also leave the sector exposed to a higher level of cyberattacks.
For all the benefits that fintech has brought to consumers, businesses and societies, it has also introduced new sources of vulnerability to financial systems, raising questions about the latter’s fragility.
Further to our January 2024 client alert, the anticipated amendments to the Enforcement Decree of the Financial Services and Capital Markets Act (“FSCMA Enforcement Decree”) have been adopted by the Korean government cabinet on 27 February 2024 and promulgated on 5 March 2024. The amendments to the FSCMA Enforcement Decree are therefore effective as of 5 March 2024.
As of 5 March 2024, domestic employees of multinational companies who have acquired shares under a stock-based compensation program may sell such shares without the involvement of a Korean broker and may deposit proceeds from the sale of shares into an account with an overseas financial institution. For any shares sold/funds deposited prior to this date, the previous restrictions applied and these transactions could therefore remain problematic if they did not comply with the restrictions.
Effective on 25 March 2024, the Stock Exchange of Thailand (“SET”) updated the requirements for acquisition, by a listed company or its subsidiaries, of the assets of a non-listed company (“Backdoor Listing”), and the requirements for the listing of securities of a company formed by amalgamation between a listed company and non-listed company (“Relisting”). These revisions aim to strengthen the consideration process and the required qualifications of companies proceeding with Backdoor Listing and Relisting, in order to maintain the same standards comparable to a new listing.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is expected to boost intra-African trade by more than 81 percent in the next decade. To ensure such advantages are obtained, a number of AfCFTA Protocols have been developed to facilitate sustainable investment and harmonize policy and regulations across African Union member states, including a Protocol on Investment. The Investment Protocol provides the continent with a clear set of guidelines and principles to expedite financing and investment across the continent’s new free trade zone. With trade finance considered a critical enabler of cross-border investment in Africa, the Investment Protocol is also assisting development finance institutions, increasingly important in bridging Africa’s trade finance gap, to more seamlessly support such investment.
On 25 March 2024, the National Securities Commission (CNV) issued General Resolution No. 994/2024, which regulates the Registry of Virtual Asset Service Providers in line with the provisions of Section 38 of the recently amended Law No. 25246 (“Law”). This Law had incorporated virtual asset service providers (VASPs) as AML/FT-regulated entities.
On 26 March 2024, Directive (EU) 2024/927 amending the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive and the Undertaking for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive relating to delegation arrangements, liquidity risk management, supervisory reporting, provision of depositary and custody services and loan origination by alternative investment funds (AIFMD II or “Directive”) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
AIFMD II will enter into force on 15 April 2024.