This week the International Advocacy team at the World Council of Credit Unions (World Council) released the 2022 Global Regulatory Update. The update highlighted the leading regulatory issues currently affecting credit unions including sustainable finance, proportionality, financial inclusion, anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), payments and digitization. With sustainable finance as the feature of the report, it was noted that we should look forward to regulations that will encourage investments in environmentally responsible products as well as related regulations that govern procedure, including disclosures and reporting requirements.

The updated further underlined other key regulatory factors, including:

• Proportionality and financial inclusion: G20 and international regulators are beginning to home in on the value of proportionate standards, understanding that reduced regulatory burden will ultimately help to address concerns related to financial inclusion.
• AML/CFT: AML/CFT regulations continue to place regulatory and compliance burdens on credit unions; however, inter-governmental bodies such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) are in line with objectives to alleviate these burdens in order to support financial inclusion by providing a risk-based and proportionate approach to regulation.
• Payments: Payment reforms are a double-edged sword bringing both disruption and opportunities to credit unions.
• Digitalization: Evolving regulations surrounding digitization will most likely affect credit unions down the line. As credit unions become more technologically advanced, regulations may prove to be overburdensome; and eventually, credit unions that have not advanced in the digital arena may still find themselves subject to digitization requirements. In the course of time, credit unions will presumably need to jump on the digital bandwagon.

The entire 2022 Global Regulatory Update is available here; and episode 9 of the Global Credit Union Podcast featuring its authors, World Council's Senior Vice President of International Advocacy and General Counsel, Andrew Price, and Assistant General Counsel of International Advocacy, Panya Monford , is available here.