Each month our finance writers round up the top regulatory announcements and compliance changes to ensure our clients stay informed. We follow regulatory news and updates from ASIC, CySEC, MFSA, FCA, FSA, FRB, SEC, MiFID II to produce compliant content marketing for our clients. Here’s our financial regulations roundup for October 2026.
September was a defining month for financial regulations. The month delivered a failed Senate vote on the CLARITY Act, the SEC’s first legal pathway for tokenized stocks, the first binding rule under the GENIUS Act, and a run of consultation deadlines and licensing gateways across Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa.
Marketing Crackdowns & “Finfluencers”
Regulators are increasingly removing the shield of third-party deniability when it comes to attracting retail traders, holding brokers directly responsible for marketing activities conducted by their Introducing Brokers (IBs), affiliates, and hired “finfluencers.” Under ESMA, FCA, and ASIC frameworks, brokers can be held accountable for creative content, social media videos, and billboard campaigns produced or distributed by these third parties. At the same time, deposit bonuses and promotions that frame leverage as a quick path to profit remain strictly prohibited across major Tier-1 jurisdictions, while leverage limits continue to tighten, with major currency pairs generally capped at 30:1 in Europe and other major regulatory markets, compared with 50:1 in the US. Meanwhile, previously more permissive offshore jurisdictions, including Vanuatu and Seychelles, are facing increasing pressure to move closer to Tier-1 regulatory standards and risk limits.
CLARITY Act Fails Its Senate Test
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act fell short when the Senate voted, with the procedural motion to proceed failing 49 to 50, well below the 60 votes needed. Leadership had filed closure before the August recess to guarantee the vote, but ethics provisions covering officials’ crypto holdings proved the sticking point rather than the split of oversight between the SEC and the CFTC. Democrats argued the draft did not effectively reach the president and his family, while Republicans pointed to more than 100 revisions made at Democrats’ request.
Seven Democratic senators who had worked on the text called the outcome a setback rather than the end, and Senator Thom Tillis entered a motion to reconsider keeping the procedural door open.
Hard Enforcement of DORA (Circular C799)
Following its introduction, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) has moved into a strict enforcement phase, with CySEC strengthening its focus on ICT risk management and operational resilience. Under Circular C799, CySEC has aligned with joint European guidelines for estimating the aggregated annual costs and losses arising from major ICT-related incidents, placing greater emphasis on consistent incident reporting and financial impact assessment. At the same time, Cyprus Investment Firms (CIFs) are expected to maintain detailed and well-documented ICT risk registers and demonstrate that their third-party technology providers, including external CRM platforms and trading bridge software, have adequate resilience against cyber threats, data breaches, and other technology-related disruptions.
SEC Opens a Path for Tokenised Stocks
The SEC issued its long awaited Innovation Exemption, granting two five year conditional exemptions that allow permissioned trading of tokenized versions of US listed stocks on onchain venues. Tokenized Securities Venues are exempted from the definition of an exchange, while qualifying liquidity providers are exempted from the dealer definition when they supply liquidity through automated market makers and liquidity pools.
The relief is tightly controlled. Venues face symbol and volume caps, must halt trading in a token whenever the underlying stock stops trading on its primary listing exchange, and listed companies get 30 calendar days to object before token trading can begin. The order does not cover decentralized finance or tokenized funds, and the SEC is asking for comment on every part of it.
Earlier in the month, the Commission also proposed changes to transfer agent rules that would allow blockchain based recordkeeping, while comments on Regulation Crypto Assets stay open until October 20.
Treasury Fires the First Binding GENIUS Act Rule
The Treasury Department published an interim final rule, the first binding regulation under the GENIUS Act. It sets out how the Stablecoin Certification Review Committee will decide whether state level stablecoin regimes are substantially similar to federal standards, and it draws a $10 billion line through the market. Issuers at or below that size can opt for state regulation, while larger issuers are pushed into the federal framework within 360 days unless they win a waiver.
The rule is procedural, and the committee will not accept certifications until the Office of Management and Budget approves the related information collection. The OCC has committed to a final implementing rule by November, with the Act due to take effect on January 18, 2027, which leaves very little room before the full rulebook must be in place.
CFTC Takes Its Prediction Market Fight to the White House
The CFTC sent two prediction market rules to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which received them on September 28. One would amend the definition of a swap to explicitly cover event contracts, while the other would exclude casino style gambling products from the agency’s reach, a pairing designed to strengthen its claim to exclusive jurisdiction over the sector.
The filings land in the middle of a legal tug of war with states, which argue that platforms such as Kalshi are running illegal gambling operations. Federal courts remain divided and the dispute could end at the Supreme Court. The CFTC also issued an advisory, flagging manipulation risks in so called mention markets, and Coinbase received derivatives clearing organization approval from the agency on September 28, completing its derivatives stack.
Europe’s Central Banks and ESMA Weigh In on MiCA
The European Commission’s targeted consultation on reviewing MiCA closed on September 30 after its deadline was pushed back by a month, and the final days brought sharp responses from the bloc’s regulators.
The ECB and all 27 national central banks urged Brussels to scrap MiCA’s fixed bank deposit requirement for stablecoin reserves in favour of liquidity based rules, while backing the ban on paying interest to holders and a shift of crypto firm supervision to ESMA. ESMA followed on September 30, calling for clearer token classification, binding opinions on classification, targeted rules for staking, lending and borrowing, and a new regulated category for firms that act as gateways to DeFi.
It also wants rules stopping licensed firms from offering services tied to stablecoins that do not comply with MiCA. The Commission’s report is expected by mid 2027 and could arrive with legislative proposals, while the ECB launched Pontes to settle tokenized wholesale transactions in central bank money.
UK Opens the Gateway for Crypto Authorisation
The FCA began accepting applications under the UK’s new cryptoasset regime, starting a clock that gives firms until February 28, 2027 to apply ahead of the rules taking effect on October 25, 2027. The regime brings trading platforms, staking, custody and other digital asset activities under FCA oversight, and applicants will be assessed on consumer protection, safeguarding of customer assets, market integrity and financial resilience.
Registration under the Money Laundering Regulations will not convert automatically, so existing firms need to treat the process as a fresh authorization exercise. Firms that apply within the window can keep providing specified services, including taking on new business, while their applications are assessed, provided they meet the transitional conditions.
France Sets Up a Tokenisation Task Force
In mid September, the AMF, the Banque de France and the French Treasury announced a strategic group dedicated to innovation and the tokenization of finance. It will look for concrete use cases, including tokenized deposits and stablecoins for settlement, the tokenization of the financial instruments market and tokenized funds.
The group is also meant to flag the risks that slow adoption could pose to the competitiveness of the European financial center, and it will support the planned wholesale euro central bank digital currency due in autumn 2026. Its work will feed into the Franco German working group on tokenized finance announced earlier this year.
Hong Kong Pushes Stablecoins Toward the Market
Hong Kong’s 2026 Policy Address set out the next phase of the city’s digital asset agenda. The SFC is to promote trading of regulated stablecoins on licensed virtual asset platforms and their use in settling tokenized money market funds, and to refine its rules so that tokenized gold and other suitable real world assets can be issued and traded on licensed platforms.
A week later, the HKMA said its CMU debt settlement system will launch services by the end of 2026 offering around the clock onchain settlement with support for a digital Hong Kong dollar, and that it will study whether tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins can settle on it.
The SFC also outlined a new digital asset licensing regime. With the first two stablecoin issuer licenses already granted in April to HSBC and Anchorpoint, the focus is now shifting to where those tokens will actually trade.
South Korea Maps Tokenisation While the Stablecoin Bill Waits
South Korea’s FSC announced a phased roadmap for opening tokenized securities to institutional investors, with the first phase starting in February 2027. That phase covers instruments such as privately pooled money market funds, institutional bonds and publicly offered fractional investment securities, with caps on individual subscriptions, while later phases would extend tokenization to all publicly offered securities and build onchain payment infrastructure linked to stablecoins.
The won stablecoin bill, however, is still waiting. The Digital Asset Basic Act remains in consultation, with the FSC and the Bank of Korea still at odds over whether banks should hold at least half of a stablecoin issuer, even though September had been the ruling party’s target for formal introduction.
Regulations Roundup is produced by our team of finance writers. Contentworks is a financial content agency that works with forex brokers, fintechs, banks and payment providers. If you’re looking for expert financial marketing, book a free Zoom with our team.