Week of  February 9 - 15, 2026

🗓️ February 9, 2026

• CFTC Targets Relationship Investment Scams with National and International Initiatives this Valentine’s Week. As Valentine’s Day approaches, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Office of Customer Education and Outreach is leading awareness efforts to warn the public about relationship investment scams, which cost Americans an estimated $10 billion annually. The national, interagency DatingOrDefrauding? social media campaign advises skepticism towards requests from new online friends or romantic interests, particularly those involving crypto assets. Participating organizations include various federal and state agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations. Warning signs of these scams include an inability to meet in person, moving conversations to encrypted apps, and claims of expertise in crypto trading. The campaign, in collaboration with the International Organization of Securities Commissions, aims to reduce victimization by raising awareness during a period when scammers exploit emotional vulnerability. 🔗 Read more
• The EBA launches consultation on simplifying the credit risk framework. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has launched a public consultation on its Discussion Paper regarding the simplification and assessment of the credit risk framework, aiming to enhance its usability, efficiency, and simplicity. The consultation, which runs until 10 May 2026, seeks feedback to guide potential simplifications in the EBA’s future policy work, focusing on a systematic review of mandates under the EU Banking Package. The paper proposes consolidating EBA products and aligning regulatory definitions to improve the coherence and navigability of the credit risk framework while balancing risk-sensitivity, comparability, and cost-efficiency. 🔗 Read more
• Statement from Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank. François Villeroy de Galhau has decided to step down as Governor of the Banque de France after 11 years of dedicated service, bringing realism and strong European convictions to the Governing Council. He will now lead the Fondation des Apprentis d’Auteuil, focusing on educational, social, and professional training for vulnerable young people and families. François will remain a friend of the ECB, and best wishes are extended for his new mission. 🔗 Read more
  
  

🗓️ February 10, 2026

• SEC Dismisses Civil Enforcement Action Against Illinois Investment Adviser and Its Minority Owner and Simultaneously Institutes Settled Administrative Proceeding. On February 10, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a joint stipulation with Barrington Asset Management, Inc. and Gregory David Paris to dismiss its civil enforcement action against them, while simultaneously instituting a settled administrative proceeding. The investigation and litigation were conducted by the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office, with assistance from the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, and supervised by Amy Flaherty Hartman and Joseph Sansone. 🔗 Read more
• The Minnesota Department of Commerce joins IAIS cooperation and information exchange agreement. The Minnesota Department of Commerce has joined the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU), an agreement for international supervisory cooperation and information exchange. This membership enhances Minnesota’s commitment to international cooperation, crucial for effective insurance supervision and consumer protection. The MMoU facilitates global compliance and confidentiality, allowing insurance supervisors to exchange information and support each other, promoting financial stability and sound supervision of cross-border insurance operations. 🔗 Read more
  
  

🗓️ February 11, 2026

• SEC Obtains Final Judgment as to Former Finance Director at CIRCOR International in Alleged Accounting Fraud. The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a final judgment against Nicholas Bowerman, a former finance director of CIRCOR International Inc., regarding accounting fraud charges. The SEC’s complaint, filed on September 5, 2024, accused Bowerman of manipulating CIRCOR’s internal accounting records from 2019 to 2021, leading to overstated financial performance for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 and the nine months ending on October 3, 2021. The judgment permanently enjoins Bowerman from violating antifraud and accounting control provisions and prohibits him from roles in public company financial reporting or auditing. Additionally, Bowerman is ordered to pay $17,823.80 in disgorgement, $4,148.51 in prejudgment interest, and a $75,000 civil penalty. The SEC’s investigation and litigation were conducted by the Philadelphia Regional Office. 🔗 Read more
• SEC Obtains Final Judgments Against Defendants John David Gessin, Equifunds, Inc., and Ice Fleet LLC. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued final judgments by default against Equifunds, Inc., John David Gessin, and Ice Fleet LLC on January 20 and 21, 2026, respectively, for fraud charges. The SEC’s complaint, filed on March 14, 2023, accused the defendants of a multi-year scheme that raised over $1.6 million from five retail investors, with Gessin misappropriating funds for personal expenses. The judgments permanently enjoin the defendants from violating certain securities laws and hold them liable for disgorgement of $1,230,807 and prejudgment interest of $410,116. Gessin is further prohibited from participating in securities activities and acting as an officer or director of a publicly traded company, with a civil penalty of $945,804. 🔗 Read more
• FSI and IAIS publish joint Insights note on insurance supervisory resources. In a joint note titled “The next generation of insurance supervision – resourcing the future”, staff from the IAIS and BIS’s Financial Stability Institute examine how supervisors identify and allocate human and financial resources, the sufficiency of these resources in meeting current and future demands, and the strategies to allocate them efficiently. The analysis, informed by a survey of 23 insurance supervisory authorities and a desktop review of assessment reports, highlights the importance of having adequate supervisory resources and optimizing their use. Key findings also note that while financial resources may not be the most pressing challenge in certain jurisdictions, supervisors should anticipate future resource-related challenges, manage resources cost-efficiently, and consider the resource implications of expanding supervisory mandates. 🔗 Read more
• IOSCO announces Pre-Valentine’s Day Campaign Focused on Combatting Relationship Investments Scams. IOSCO announced a worldwide Pre-Valentine’s Day campaign to raise awareness about relationship investment scams and the devastating effect they can have on an investor’s financial future. These scams - also called romance scams, crypto investment scams, financial grooming scams, and “pig butchering” - are a “long con” where fraudsters use wrong-number texts, dating apps, and social media to build trust over time through friendship, romance, or offers to help achieve financial goals. After the relationship is established, the fraudsters claim to know about profitable investment opportunities and direct individuals to a legitimate looking (but fake) investing website or app. Once individuals have invested all their money, the “new friend” disappears - and so does their money. IOSCO says these scams are estimated to have caused the loss of tens of billions of dollars globally, and the campaign encourages the public to learn how to recognize them and share the information to warn others. 🔗 Read more
• New data release: ECB wage tracker continues to suggest normalisation of negotiated wage pressures in 2026. The European Central Bank (ECB) wage tracker shows negotiated wage growth with smoothed one-off payments of 3.2% in 2025 and 2.4% in 2026, with a slight revision up for 2026. The tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments indicates 3.0% growth in 2025 and 2.7% in 2026, while excluding one-off payments, it shows a decrease from 3.9% in 2025 to 2.7% in 2026, also revised up for 2026. The headline wage tracker is better for quarterly dynamics, while the unsmoothed version suits yearly dynamics. The ECB wage tracker suggests less dispersion in wage pressures across euro area countries in 2026 and a more stable outlook, with employee coverage at 37.1% in the first half and 29.2% in the second half of 2026. 🔗 Read more
• ECB appoints Thomas Broeng Jorgensen as Director General Specialised Institutions and Less Significant Institutions. The Executive Board of the European Central Bank has appointed Thomas Broeng Jorgensen as Director General for Specialised Institutions and Less Significant Institutions, effective 1 March 2026, succeeding Patrick Amis. Jorgensen, who has been Deputy Director General since 2021, will oversee the supervision of banks with specialised business models and less significant banks by national supervisors. He joined the ECB in 2014 and has held various senior roles, including Head of Division responsible for supervisory policies. 🔗 Read more
  
  

🗓️ February 12, 2026

• Federal Reserve Board announces approval of application by Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito Elga, Ltda. The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced its approval of the application by Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito Elga, Ltda., of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to establish a representative office in Miami, Florida. 🔗 Read more
• Federal Reserve Board issues enforcement action with former employee of Regions Bank. The Federal Reserve Board announced a consent prohibition order against Nicole M. Ramsey, a former employee of Regions Bank in Birmingham, Alabama, for misappropriating customer funds. 🔗 Read more
• CFTC Announces Innovation Advisory Committee Members. Washington D.C. - The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the members of the Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC), which aims to ensure the agency’s decisions reflect market realities and help future-proof its markets. Sponsored by Chairman Michael S. Selig, the IAC includes leaders from various financial sectors and will assist the CFTC in adapting to innovations like artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies. The committee is expected to be a valuable resource for modernizing regulations and maintaining financial oversight in a rapidly changing environment. 🔗 Read more
• FDIC Releases Economic Scenarios for 2026 Stress Testing. Washington - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released hypothetical economic scenarios for stress tests on institutions with over $250 billion in assets, as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. These scenarios, developed with the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, include a baseline aligned with private sector forecasts and a severely adverse scenario to test financial resilience, using 28 variables like GDP and unemployment rates. 🔗 Read more
• The EBA advises national authorities on actions to take at the end of the transition period under its No-Action Letter on the interplay between PSD2 and MiCA. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published an Opinion to guide national competent authorities (NCAs) on handling the transition period ending on 2 March 2026, as outlined in the EBA’s No-Action Letter of 2 June 2025. This period allows crypto asset service providers (CASPs) nine months to continue transacting electronic money tokens (EMTs) that qualify as payment services while awaiting PSD2 authorization. The Opinion advises NCAs on conditions for allowing CASPs to continue these services post-transition and when to require discontinuation if conditions aren’t met. It also emphasizes cooperation with national authorities under MiCA and other enforcement bodies to ensure compliance, following a request from the European Commission to clarify the interplay between PSD2 and MiCA. 🔗 Read more
• Final version of the Application Paper on operational resilience objectives and toolkit published. The IAIS has published the final version of its Application Paper on operational resilience objectives and toolkit, following consultations in 2024 and 2025. The paper supports supervisors and insurers in assessing and addressing operational resilience, covering themes such as the relationship between operational resilience, governance, and operational risk management, key elements of a sound approach, and specific objectives for insurance supervisors. A public discussion webinar will be held on 19 February 2026, with additional webinars available for IAIS Members. 🔗 Read more
• ECB and ESRB issue joint report analysing financial stability risks from linkages between banks and the non-bank financial intermediation sector. The European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) released a joint report on the financial stability risks from linkages between banks and the non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) sector. The report highlights that while these linkages do not currently pose acute risks, they create significant vulnerabilities, particularly among large euro area global systemically important banks (G-SIBs), which are crucial for absorbing financial shocks. It identifies three key roles of banks in these interactions: liquidity management, provision of leverage, and market-making, which could lead to systemic risks through funding challenges and exposure to NBFI trading strategies. The report emphasizes the need for improved data sharing to better understand and mitigate these risks, as current data gaps limit visibility into EU financial sector vulnerabilities. 🔗 Read more
  
  

🗓️ February 13, 2026

• SEC Announces 45th Annual Small Business Forum to Improve Capital-Raising Policy. Washington - The Securities and Exchange Commission will host its 45th Annual Government Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., on March 9 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET, with a live webcast available. The forum aims to bring together public and private sector members to discuss and suggest improvements in policies affecting capital raising for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and smaller public companies. Participants can submit policy recommendations by March 5 and vote online to prioritize them for the Commission and Congress. 🔗 Read more
• The EBA publishes its final Guidelines on proportionate retail diversification methods under the standardised approach for credit risk. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its final Guidelines on proportionate retail diversification methods under the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR), providing a harmonised framework for assessing retail portfolio diversification. To qualify for the preferential 75% risk weight, institutions must demonstrate that no single exposure exceeds 0.2% of the total eligible retail portfolio, with an allowance for up to 10% of the portfolio to exceed this threshold if certain conditions are met. The EBA chose a one-step approach over an iterative method to ensure proportionality and reduce operational burdens, raising the diversification threshold from 5% to 10% based on industry feedback. Additionally, the Guidelines clarify the treatment of securitised retail exposures, offering a temporary derogation for investor institutions when obligor-level information is unavailable. 🔗 Read more
• EIOPA updates its Guidelines on supervisory review process and on market and counterparty risk exposures following Solvency II review. The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published revised Guidelines on the supervisory review process and market and counterparty risk exposures, aiming to update the rules in light of the Solvency II review. The revisions focus on regulatory simplification and burden reduction, introducing new sections for business model analysis, joint inspections, early intervention, recovery planning, and conduct supervision, while also incorporating sustainability, IT, cyber risks, and SupTech into the supervisory process. These changes are intended to enhance consistency, predictability, and transparency in supervisory engagement across the EU. 🔗 Read more
• ECB publishes consolidated banking data for end-September 2025. The aggregate of total assets of EU-headquartered credit institutions increased by 0.95%, from €33.12 trillion in September 2024 to €33.44 trillion in September 2025. During the same period, EU credit institutions’ aggregate non-performing loans ratio increased by 0.01 percentage points year on year to stand at 1.97% in September 2025. EU credit institutions’ aggregate return on equity was 7.41% in September 2025 and their Common Equity Tier 1 ratio was 16.43%. 🔗 Read more
  
  

🗓️ February 14, 2026‍

• ECB enhances repo facility for central banks. The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has decided to enhance the Eurosystem repo facility for central banks (EUREP) to make it more flexible and effective in supporting the smooth transmission of euro area monetary policy. The updated framework introduces standing access, in principle, for all central banks, unless excluded on the grounds of money laundering, terrorist financing, or international sanctions. These changes aim to make the facility more flexible, broader in terms of its geographical reach, and more relevant for global holders of euro securities. Since EUREP was first introduced in 2020, the world economy has undergone profound structural shifts, and liquidity lines like EUREP help mitigate potential negative spillover effects on euro area financial market conditions. 🔗 Read more