Financial Services Regulatory Outlook 2026: The Regulatory Remix (Deloitte)

Summary

• Globally, average stablecoin supply reached $273 billion by December 2025, a 47% increase from December 2024.p.14
• 94% of financial services firms plan to increase AI investment in the next 12 months, with 39% expecting a significant rise.p.20
• Under the UK stablecoin proposals, issuers must hold at least 40% of backing assets as unremunerated deposits at the Bank of England, with proposed holding limits of £20,000 for individuals and £10 million for businesses.p.16
• In the UK, firms reimbursed £112 million to victims within nine months of similar rules for impersonation fraud taking effect.p.17
• FCA regulation of buy-now-pay-later commences on 15 July 2026, including creditworthiness checks for all transactions.p.18
• The Bank of England estimates the top three vendors supply about 75% of cloud, 45% of models and 30% of data services to UK financial firms.p.25

Key insights

1. Tokenised money market funds represent around 0.1% of the traditional money market fund market.p.19
2. Nearly a third of respondents cite managing AI risks (29%) and meeting regulatory obligations (28%) as the main obstacles to realising returns from AI.p.20
3. If the AI Digital Omnibus proposals are not adopted, the original AI Act timeline of 2 August 2026 will stand.p.21
4. The PSD3 package final legal texts are expected by mid-2026, with compliance deadlines anticipated in 2028.p.17
5. The EU and UK have deferred implementing the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book until January 2027.p.8
6. Banks should not anticipate an immediate return on investment from stablecoins and tokenised deposits in 2026.p.15