🗞 Key News of the Week: main developments covered from August 17–21

🗞 Key News of the Week: main developments covered from August 17–21

🇧🇷 Brazil’s Central Bank is formally assessing the international expansion of Pix. Linking Pix with foreign instant-payment systems could reduce costs, accelerate transactions and improve the transparency of cross-border payments. The regulator already has information-sharing agreements with 65 international partners. In 2025, Pix processed almost 80 billion transactions worth more than $6.87 trillion.

🇪🇺 The MiCA transition period ended with only eight compliant euro stablecoins remaining. Their combined capitalization grew by 128% in one year, reaching $673.9 million, but they still represent less than 1% of the global stablecoin market. Regulation has created a legal foundation for banks, but legacy systems, fragmented compliance and slow fiat connectivity continue to limit adoption.

🇲🇽 Mexico strengthened its risk-based AML framework. Businesses engaged in legally defined “vulnerable activities” must develop their own risk matrices, identify beneficial owners, apply enhanced KYC and report qualifying suspicious transactions within 24 hours. Transaction records must be retained for ten years, while monitoring should detect deviations from each customer’s normal behaviour.

🇰🇷 South Korea is tightening access to foreign cryptocurrency exchanges. Transfers to Bybit, HTX, personal wallets and other external destinations will be subject to counterparty-risk checks. Transactions above KRW 10 million—approximately $7,080—will require verification of ownership and purpose. If the information cannot be confirmed, the transfer may be delayed or rejected.

🇺🇿 Uzbekistan will disable web-based P2P transfers from November 16. Transfers will remain available only through mobile apps, with biometric verification required when logging in from a new device. Banks and fintechs will also assume responsibility for fraud-related customer losses, giving them a direct incentive to restrict accounts showing frequent transfers, rapid turnover or other atypical patterns.

🇺🇦 Ukraine is moving from periodic gambling reports to continuous supervision. Its DSOM monitoring platform is designed to process up to 10,000 transactions per second, with 28 of 30 licensed operators already connected. The second stage will allow authorities to monitor both fund movements and gaming activity in real time.

🇧🇷 Brazil reported a modest reduction in offshore gambling: the illegal segment’s estimated share fell from 41–51% to 38–44%. However, enforcement also reached the regulated market. SPA suspended 14 licensed betting brands for player-monitoring and data-reporting failures. Customers may withdraw funds, but cannot place new bets; operators face daily fines of up to $38,557.

🇮🇹🇷🇴 Domain enforcement is becoming increasingly automated. Italy ordered ISPs to block another 190 gambling websites, even when their infrastructure is located abroad. Romania added 800 domains to its blacklist using a tool designed to identify mirror sites—more additions in one year than during the previous twelve years combined. Polymarket was among the affected platforms.

🇩🇰 Danish EMI Inpay was temporarily barred from onboarding new gambling companies. The regulator cited inadequate assessment of high-risk customers, unclear purposes of business relationships and complex international ownership structures. A PSP is increasingly expected to understand not only a transaction, but the entire business model behind it.

🇺🇸 The US illegal gambling market was estimated at $97.4 billion, with offshore platforms allegedly controlling 77% of the market. The American Gaming Association produced a lower estimate of 53.9%, partly because the studies used different methodologies. Under either assessment, the unregulated segment remains larger than the regulated one.

🇦🇱🇰🇪 Prohibition and regulatory overreach are also being reconsidered. Albania is preparing to issue up to ten online-betting licences after a seven-year ban failed to eliminate demand; unregulated sports-betting revenue reached an estimated $126 million in 2025. Meanwhile, Kenya resumed processing gambling licence applications after its Supreme Court suspended the most controversial new fee and capital requirements.

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