“MICA Regulation coming into force…”

Market in Crypto-Assets (MICA)

The much-debated Market in Crypto-Assets (MICA) Regulation is expected to enter into force in early 2023. MiCA is intended to close gaps in existing EU financial services legislation by establishing a harmonized set of rules for crypto-assets and related activities and services. Among other things, MiCA imposes restrictions on the issuance and use of stablecoins.  It is part of a broader digital finance package.

The European Parliament is expected to vote on the bill in February 2023. After formal approval by the Council of the EU, MiCA will be published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force 20 days later. MiCA will generally start applying after a transitional period of 18 months, meaning that MiCA will likely take effect no earlier than Q3 2024. However, the rules for stablecoins will start applying after a transitional period of 12 months and could hence take effect from spring 2024.

HSBC wins appeal against $36 mln Euribor cartel fine

HSBC HSBA.L has won an appeal against a decision by European antitrust regulators to fine Europe’s second-largest bank 33.6 million euros ($36 million) over its role in a cartel to manipulate benchmark Euribor interest rates in 2007.

However, the European Court of Justice, Europe’s highest court, said on Thursday that it had dismissed the bank’s challenge against a ruling that found it had participated in a cartel.

“The Court of Justice upholds the annulment of the 33.6 million euro fine imposed on the HSBC Group,” the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice (CJEU) said but added that it “dismisses the HSBC companies’ action challenging the finding that it participated in the cartel at issue”.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, ruled in 2016 that HSBC and six other banks had tried to distort Euribor (euro interbank offered rate), a benchmark for rates on financial products, fining the lender 33.6 million euros.

HSBC penalised alongside JPMorgan JPM.N and Credit Agricole CAGR.PA, challenged the decision and in 2019, a lower tribunal scrapped the fine because of insufficient reasoning.

The European Commission subsequently re-imposed a slightly lower fine of 31.7 million euros in 2021.

Banks’ profit picnic will attract ant invasion

Big banks have little to fear from a recession in 2023. They are in better shape than a decade ago, with big buffers against delinquent debtors and numerous watchdogs keeping them honest. Nonetheless, the coming year will see large U.S. lenders’ profit relentlessly gnawed by rising expenses that come from many different directions. It is less a bear attack, and more an ant invasion.

So while the economy may be slowing, banks are doing just fine. The problem is that there are many people vying, directly and indirectly, for a share of their windfall. Those include customers, regulators and – most of all – employees. All four banks’ fourth-quarter earnings per share will be lower than a year earlier, analysts reckon, and U.S. lenders’ average valuation of 1.2 times estimated book value, according to Refinitiv data, is likely to be as good as it gets.

EU’s frozen Russian assets plan is best put on ice

Making Russia pay for Ukraine sounds like a no-brainer moral imperative. The European Commission has launched a plan to try using billions of dollars and euros of frozen Russian assets to help finance the reconstruction of Ukraine. It is a wrong-headed approach on legal, financial, and political grounds.

Europe is paying an economic price for the war in the form of higher inflation and a major energy crisis. It is also sending financial and military aid to Ukraine. Governments are wary of taxpayer fatigue, which could turn into revolt when they start footing the bill for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

The European Union is eyeing two kinds of assets. First, 19 billion euros worth of sanctioned oligarchs’ money. Then an estimated 165 billion euros of frozen Russian reserves sitting in euro zone central banks.

Crypto exchange Binance registers in Sweden

Sweden’s financial watchdog said on Thursday it had registered crypto exchange Binance this week as a financial institute in the country.

The registration allows Binance to launch a website in Swedish and in other ways market itself directly to consumers in the Nordic country, Per Nordkvist, deputy head of the Financial Supervisory Authority’s banks division, told Reuters.

With its registration in Sweden, it has now received regulatory permissions or approvals in 15 jurisdictions, including several European Union states and Australia and New Zealand.

The core of the company’s business, the giant Binance.com exchange, last year processed trades worth over $22 trillion.

“Binance continues to demonstrate its commitment to work closely with regulatory agencies to uphold global standards,” Richard Teng, Binance’s head of Europe and MENA, said in a blog post on Wednesday.

AstraZeneca to buy U.S.-based CinCor Pharma in $1.8 bln deal

AstraZeneca AZN.L said on Monday it will buy U.S.-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm CinCor Pharma Inc CINC.O in a deal valued at about $1.8 billion to strengthen its pipeline of heart and kidney drugs.

AstraZeneca said it will pay $26 per CinCor share in cash, a premium of nearly 121% to the stock’s closing price on Friday.

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