Thought Leadership - Horizon Scanner: Finance, August 2025

Ireland is home to a wide variety of financial services providers. To support both providers and their customers, there is an array of financial services legislation...

The EU Retail Investment Strategy is a legislative package which introduces significant changes to the UCITS Directive and AIFMD, as well as MiFID II, the Insurance Distribution Directive and the Solvency II Directive via an omnibus directive (Omnibus Directive).

Ireland offers a sophisticated regulatory framework for Alternative Investment Funds, with structures ranging from ICAVs and Investment Limited Partnerships to Unit Trusts and Common Contractual Funds. The jurisdiction provides flexible options for both retail and institutional investors, with distinct regulatory pathways for RIAIFs, QIAIFs, and ELTIFs, each designed to accommodate different investment strategies and liquidity profiles while maintaining robust investor protections.

On 26 February 2026, the Central Bank of Ireland (the "CBI") unveiled its Regulatory and Supervisory Outlook Report for 2026 (the "Report"), focusing on ensuring the resilience...

The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment has launched a public consultation on targeted reforms to the Limited Partnerships Act 1907, proposing changes that could significantly impact Ireland's private funds landscape. The consultation addresses three key areas: increasing the maximum number of partners from 20 to 149, introducing a statutory whitelist of permitted activities for limited partners, and allowing greater flexibility regarding capital contributions and withdrawals.

This follows the publication of a consultation paper 161 by the Central Bank in September 2025 in which it outlined proposed changes to the existing domestic regulatory regime applicable to Irish...

On 30 October 2025, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) announced its decision to move to the next phase of the digital euro project.

European securities regulators are launching a comprehensive assessment of crypto-asset service providers' digital operational resilience, with a particular focus on custody activities and distributed ledger technology risks. The exercise will examine how firms manage critical areas including key storage, transaction controls, incident response, and third-party dependencies under the newly enforceable Digital Operational Resilience Act.

The Newsletter’s purpose is to keep payment institutions (PIs) and electronic money institutions (EMIs) firms informed of key regulatory changes and share relevant insights in the Payments and E-Money sector.

On 13 March 2023, following hot on the heels of facilitative legislation, the Central Bank published its long-promised individual accountability framework (IAF) for industry consultation.