Financial Regulatory

Former solicitor Colm Kincaid has been appointed by the Central Bank as its new director of consumer protection. Mr Kincaid, who practised as a solicitor in London and Dublin prior to joining the Central Bank in 2004, will take up the senior role from 1 October 2021.

Business law firm Mason Hayes & Curran LLP has announced the appointment of Liam Flynn as a senior partner in the firm’s financial services team. Mr Flynn works with financial institutions, including insurers, banks and fintech firms, to help them respond to today's challenging regulatory

Irish lawyer Joe Gavin has departed from his role as partner and head of financial services at ByrneWallace to take up a role as chief executive officer of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). With over 26 years' experience as a financial services lawyer, Mr Gavin, who takes up the role fr

Regulations giving effect to an EU directive which aims to improve the cross-border distribution of investment funds have been signed into law. Finance minister Paschal Donohoe has signed the European Union (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) (Amendment) Regulations 2

A new bill to restrict the total cost of credit on moneylending loans will be drafted following government approval. The Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2021 will introduce a cap on the interest rate a moneylender can charge on a loan and it will prohibit moneylenders from charging for home collect

Legislation to bring providers of hire purchase and personal contract plans (PCPs) under the remit of the Central Bank has been published. The Consumer Protection (Regulation of Retail Credit and Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2021 will implement the key recommendations of the Tutty Report to&nbs

The Department for the Economy (DfE) is teaming up with local company FinTrU to offer 20 training places to graduates who wish to retrain in the legal aspect of financial services. Applications have opened for the assured skills academy, which will be delivered remotely over a five-week period by Be

Business law firm Mason Hayes & Curran LLP has become the first Irish member of The International Stock Exchange (TISE). Headquartered in Guernsey, TISE has more than 3,000 listed securities on its official list with a total market capitalisation of more than £400 billion.

Multinational law firm Pinsent Masons has announced the appointment of Lisa Connaughton as head of company secretarial operations in Dublin. Ms Connaughton, who joins from Maples Fiduciary Services and has over 15 years' company secretarial, compliance and governance experience, will boost the firm'

The barrister heading the Central Bank of Ireland's financial conduct operations has been elected as chair of the investment management standing committee of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Derville Rowland, who joined the Central Bank in 2004 and was appointed as director gene

Two pieces of legislation giving effect to EU directives on money laundering and white collar crime have cleared the Oireachtas. The Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Bill will strengthen existing anti-money laundering legislation and will give effect to provisi

International law firm Simmons & Simmons has announced the promotion of Derek Lawlor and James McKnight to partners in Dublin. The double appointment forms part of a global round of 13 partner promotions across eight offices in Europe and Asia.

Finance lawyer Anna Vangrove has joined Shoosmiths as a banking and finance partner in Belfast. An experienced banking lawyer specialising in real estate finance and energy finance, Ms Vangrove joins from TLT, where she spent six years and was latterly the head of its Belfast banking and finance tea

Credit unions will have until the end of June to hold their 2020 AGMs virtually following an extension of Covid-19 rules. The Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020, signed into law last December, extended the timeline for credit unions to hold their 2020 AGMs to end of April. It also allowed f

Matheson and Maples and Calder, the Maples Group's law firm, have been ranked among the leading legal advisers to the Irish funds industry. The Monterey Insight Ireland Fund Report has recorded double-digit growth for the funds industry in the year to the end of June 2020.