Crypto firms have been vocal about how the US’s damaging approach to their industry is stifling innovation to the benefit of Asian and European competitors. 

International standard setters are closing in on cryptoassets and their interventions are likely to intensify in the regulated sphere of the financial services industry, but that is not necessarily bad news for banks. 

The UK looks set to tread an increasingly independent path on financial services, veering more towards the US and emerging markets. Hopes of gaining equivalence from the EU on financial services are fading. 

Regulators are riding to the rescue of traditional banks, making it harder for cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance to dethrone them. 

The Fundamental Review of the Trading Book has proved monumentally difficult to implement, but there could be a positive consequence around the management of data.

Just how radical can the UK be in terms of re-writing its post-Brexit financial regulatory framework? Not much, it appears. 

From a distant corner of the financial system comes another failure, hot on the heels of Wirecard’s collapse. The latest saga involves Greensill Capital, which also slipped through the regulatory net. 

New opportunities may beckon for the City of London as the UK looks at tweaking its regulatory regime.

Severe dislocation last year led one Bank of England official to ask whether central banks must become market makers of last resort. 

Although no more big changes are expected to the Basel framework, it will still be a busy year for compliance departments.