European Union: Finance and Banking

On 5 March 2026, the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) published a Discussion Paper (DP12) (PDF 1.4 MB) examining the use of DLT and tokenisation within Irish and European financial services, with a particular focus on investment funds, including money market funds and exchange-traded funds.

On 24 April 2026, the Joint Committee (JC) of the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs)—comprising the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)—published its Annual Report for 2025. The JC, chaired in 2025 by EIOPA,1 continued to serve as the central coordinating forum facilitating dialogue and information exchange among the ESAs, the European Commission and the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB).

The European Securities and Markets Authority has issued a definitive statement clarifying that the MiCAR transitional period expires on 1 July 2026, after which any entity providing crypto-asset services to EU clients without proper authorization will be in breach of EU law. This regulatory deadline represents a fundamental legal transformation of the EU crypto-asset market, affecting business models, contractual relationships, board exposure, and enforcement risk for crypto-asset service providers.