The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures and the International Organization of Securities Commissions issued final guidance on general business risks and losses on 14 October. The document applies to financial market infrastructures and the authorities overseeing them. It addresses risk identification, the minimum amount of liquid net assets funded by equity, governance and transparency.
The guidance supplements the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures rather than creating additional standards. It follows a November 2025 consultation and a review of how Principle 15 had been implemented. That assessment examined 34 infrastructures across 27 jurisdictions and identified weaknesses in business-risk resources and recovery planning.
RESOURCES AND RECOVERY
General business losses are distinct from participant defaults and from losses covered under the credit and liquidity principles. They can arise from operating an infrastructure as a business, including legal, custody, investment and operational risks. The final report asks each infrastructure to assess its business-risk profile and the resources needed to maintain critical services. It also links those resources to recovery or an orderly wind-down.
Industry feedback had challenged parts of the proposed approach. The World Federation of Exchanges warned in February that the consultation could produce additional capital expectations in practice or double-count resources already able to absorb losses. It also sought flexibility for expert judgement and cautioned that overly detailed disclosures could expose commercially sensitive methods. CPMI and IOSCO said the final text considered the range of consultation responses.
IMPLEMENTATION NOW SHIFTS LOCALLY
The guidance matters to payment systems, central counterparties, securities settlement systems, central securities depositories and trade repositories. Operators will need to compare existing loss taxonomies, liquid net assets funded by equity and recovery arrangements with the clarified expectations. Supervisors will have to decide how the guidance fits their oversight of infrastructures with different business models. The document allows more than one acceptable way to observe the global principles.
The next stage will be implementation by individual infrastructures together with their regulators, supervisors and overseers. The report does not set a single global compliance deadline. Attention will centre on whether authorities seek changes to liquid-resource calculations, recovery plans or disclosure practices. Any binding effect will depend on how jurisdictions incorporate the guidance into supervision.