The latest compliance news: regulatory developments, punishments, guidance, permissions, new product and service offerings.

Taurus, FINMA
Swiss financial technology firm Taurus has announced that its TDX digital assets trading facility and wider financial services have been cleared by FINMA (main picture) for retail clients.

In addition to professional clients, retail clients can now create an account and trade digital assets and tokenized securities, Taurus said in a statement yesterday. Taurus has unveiled a new list of issuers that selected TDX as a preferred venue for trading their digital securities, including Investis Group, la Mobilière, Qoqa, SCCF, Swissroc, and Teylor.  

The FINMA building:

Transactions can be conducted using various fiat currencies, including Swiss franc, euro and the dollar. 

Taurus said widening access to such products increases liquidity, while retail clients can trade digital securities on a “user-friendly” and secure platform.

As part of the move, Taurus has appointed Yann Isola as TDX head of product, responsible for designing and implementing the TDX platform across all types of customer segments. Isola, who has 15 years' experience building trading platforms, joined Taurus in October 2023.

This news service has written about the development of Switzerland's digital assets and crypto sector, including regulatory changes, such as here.

The Cayman Islands, European Commision, Jordan
The Cayman Islands and Jordan have fallen from the European Commission’s list of high-risk nations for the purposes of anti-money laundering controls.

The move comes after the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in November 2023 took the Cayman Islands off its “grey list” of jurisdictions under increased monitoring. 

The Commission’s actions will be a shot in the arm for the Caribbean jurisdiction, which, like its peers, must compete for business as locations for funds, companies, and trusts at a time when major countries’ governments are trying to stem outflows of revenue.

“The Cayman Islands and Jordan have strengthened the effectiveness of their AML/CFT [counter-terrorism finance] regimes and addressed technical deficiencies to meet the commitments in their action plans on the strategic deficiencies identified by the FATF,” the Commission said in its statement.

“The Commission’s assessment of the available information leads it to conclude that the Cayman Islands and Jordan no longer have strategic deficiencies in their AML/CFT regimes,” it added.