The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its 2024 Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA) legal opinion updates. The opinions can be accessed by ICMA members, providing them with exclusive access to a substantive body of legal know-how regarding the enforceability of the GMRA, in particular, the GMRA netting provisions in almost 70 jurisdictions.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published the 2025 legal opinion updates for the Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA). These updates provide ICMA members with important legal insights regarding the enforceability of the GMRA and its netting provisions, which are crucial for meeting regulatory capital requirements. The 2025 updates have expanded netting coverage to 73 jurisdictions, including a new addition for Northern Ireland, and cover the Digital Assets Annex in six jurisdictions: Belgium, England, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The legal opinions cover various entities such as companies, banks, securities dealers, and, where possible, insurance companies, hedge funds, mutual funds, and pension funds.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) published its 2026 updates to the Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA) legal opinions. The opinions provide ICMA members with analysis of the enforceability of the GMRA, including its close-out netting provisions. Netting coverage has been expanded to 75 jurisdictions, with Peru to be added. Digital Assets Annex now extends to eight jurisdictions, including Hong Kong and the US. Counterparty coverage has also been extended across 14 jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The opinions cover companies, banks and securities dealers and in many jurisdictions also insurance companies, hedge funds, mutual funds and pension funds. They support ICMA members in achieving regulatory capital benefits as regulators require repo to be subject to agreements such as the GMRA, supported by regulatory updated legal opinions, to allow for reduced capital requirements through close-out netting.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has announced the publication of two deliverables under the Project Guardian Fixed Income workstream, convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The publications comprise a Delivery versus Payment settlement guide for distributed ledger technology-based debt securities and a report on lessons learned from custody arrangements for such instruments. Released as an addendum to the Guardian Fixed Income Framework, these documents build on the initial framework published in November 2024. They provide practical information on settlement assets, such as wholesale central bank digital currencies, tokenised bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins and explore custody models for tokenised instruments in fixed income markets. The Fixed Income workstream brings together regulators, market infrastructures and financial institutions to explore the practical application of tokenisation and DLT in bond markets, addressing key enablers for scaling DLT adoption through on-chain settlement mechanisms and custody models.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published the Digital Bonds Annex as an addition to its Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA) suite of documentation. The Annex extends the GMRA framework to cover transactions involving digital bonds, building on the original Digital Assets Annex published in August 2024, which provides standardised terms for repo transactions involving digital cash, digital securities and asset-backed digital assets. The Digital Bonds Annex was developed by the Digital Assets Legal Working Group run by ICMA in collaboration with the International Securities Lending Association, in response to member demand. It defines ‘digital bond’ to capture natively-issued digital debt securities and clarifies that their terms and conditions must envisage the use of distributed ledger technology. ICMA will also host a webinar in May 2026 to provide members with an overview of the Annex’s features and how it operates.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its assessment of market practice and regulatory policy for the first quarter (Q1) of 2024. The issue considers navigating a technology transformation; stress and resilience in international capital markets; a shift in settlement cycle; sovereign bond market liquidity; EU government retail-targeted bond issuance; risk factors and disclosure in distributed ledger technology bond offering documents; the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation framework; and diversity, equity and inclusion in Italy.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its first quarterly report on market practice and regulatory policy for 2026. The report provides updates on ICMA’s work and key developments across international capital markets, including primary and secondary markets, repo and collateral markets, sustainable finance, fintech and digitalisation.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its quarterly report for Q2 2026, which highlight the ongoing transition of capital markets from tokenisation experimentation to strategic implementation. The report outlines ICMA’s position on the European Commission’s Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP), proposed on 4 December 2025, aimed at strengthening EU financial market integration and achieving supervisory convergence. The report details several key developments, including the introduction of dematerialised debt securities by Euroclear and Clearstream from 16 March 2026, enabling the issuance of bonds without physical certificates. The report further covers measures implemented to bolster the resilience of the UK gilt market and notes, the planned transition to T+1 settlement cycle scheduled for 11 October 2027. Furthermore, there is significant attention on sustainable finance developments, including SFDR 2.0 and responses to the Financial Conduct Authority’s consultations on ESG ratings regulation. ICMA emphasises that achieving scale in tokenisation will require coordinated efforts in standardisation, regulatory clarity, interoperability and public–private cooperation.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its quarterly report for Q3 2026, covering regulatory developments across primary, secondary and repo markets. ICMA and International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) jointly responded to the US Global Systemically Important Bank Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking recognition of the Cross-Product Master Agreement as a qualifying cross-product master netting agreement for capital relief under the Standardised Approach for Counterparty Credit Risk. A new Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA) Digital Bonds Annex was published on 30 April 2026, and the 2026 GMRA legal opinion update extended coverage to 75 jurisdictions. ICMA responded to the US Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed amendments to Rule 15c2-11 under the Securities Exchange Act 1934 supporting its limitation to equity securities, with carve-outs sought for asset-backed securities residual tranches and Additional Tier 1 instruments. The Council of the European Union agreed its negotiating position on the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (EU SFDR) review, introducing three new product categories, while the European Commission adopted revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards in July 2026, reducing mandatory environmental, social and governance datapoints by over 60%. The UK bond consolidated tape went live on 22 June 2026.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its fourth quarterly report on regulatory developments across global capital markets. Key updates include the UK Financial Conduct Authority's new prospectus rules taking effect 19 January 2026, the EU's T+1 settlement transition scheduled for 11 October 2027, and the European Central Bank's introduction of a climate factor buffer for collateral from H2 2026. The report also covers the Securities and Exchange Commission's mandatory clearing requirements for US Treasuries phased from December 2026, ongoing EU-UK removal of systematic internaliser regimes for bonds and China's cross-border repo market reforms supporting overseas institutional investors.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published its quarterly report for Q4 2026, covering regulatory developments across primary, secondary and repo markets, sustainable finance and digitalisation. The report highlights increased transparency under the new EU and UK bond post-trade transparency regimes, preparations for the transition to T+1 settlement on 11 October 2027 and EU regulatory reforms affecting central securities depositories. It also covers US Treasury clearing requirements and developments in digital assets and sustainable finance.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has published an amendment to the ICMA Primary Market Handbook to include the new ‘Appendix C1 Bond Data Taxonomy’ (BDT). The BDT is a computer-readable representation of key bond data information intended to support automated and efficient data sharing, market modernisation and data harmonisation across the bond issuance process. The appendix notes that the BDT is technology agnostic, supports both traditional and distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based debt securities and uses XML standards and XML Schema Definition (XSD) files to structure issuance, party and product data. ICMA also confirms that legal documentation will prevail in the event of discrepancies between issuance documents and the BDT digital representation.