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Published: June 15, 2026
MAR governs insider trading, market manipulation, and disclosure across the EU. Recent updates sharpen expectations around detecting suspicious trades, managing inside information, and monitoring for cross-market manipulation requiring firms to run more robust, data-driven surveillance. These changes respond to the growing complexity of trading strategies and the need for more transparent markets.
MiFID II continues to evolve, reinforcing stricter requirements for best execution, record-keeping, and surveillance of algorithmic and high-speed trading. Updates also expand the scope of reportable activity, meaning firms must capture and analyse a broader range of trading data. This demands surveillance systems that can keep up with high-volume, multi-asset trading.
In the United States, the SEC focuses on market integrity, ensuring fair trading and cracking down on manipulation and insider trading. Meanwhile, FINRA which supervises broker-dealers has signalled in its 2026 Oversight Report that manipulative trading, Reg BI compliance, best execution, and crypto-related activity are under intensified scrutiny. Firms must demonstrate that their surveillance programs detect real-world abusive patterns.
The CFTC oversees U.S. derivatives markets and remains focused on preventing manipulation and abusive practices in futures and swaps. The growing convergence between securities, crypto, and derivatives markets means firms increasingly must monitor across both CFTC-regulated and SEC-regulated products.
EMIR sets rules for derivatives reporting, clearing, and risk management. It requires market participants to report all OTC derivatives and increasingly clear them through central counterparties (CCPs). This improves transparency and reduces systemic risk.
The latest EMIR reforms (EMIR 3.0) introduce major changes, including:
Firms must maintain active clearing accounts at EU CCPs and clear a representative portion of certain derivatives domestically to reduce reliance on non-EU CCPs, especially UK ones.
Tighter oversight aims to boost EU financial stability.
Firms face higher expectations on data quality, trade reporting accuracy, and real-time reconciliation.
This is pushing firms toward unified surveillance models that can connect trading behaviour, payments, communications, and third-party data.
Regulators expect firms to break down internal data silos. A suspicious trade may relate to a sanctions issue; a cyber fraud event may show up in both communications and transaction monitoring.
Visual Compliance notes that regulators expect technology-enabled, audit-ready compliance capable of linking multiple risk domains.
Unified surveillance is becoming the standard and not the exception.
Regulators especially FINRA now expect firms to:
FINRA’s 2026 Oversight Report repeatedly stresses that controls must work in practice, not merely in policy documentation.
2026 demands that firms move beyond compliance “intent” and show compliance performance. This includes:
Firms that invest early in these capabilities will be better equipped to withstand regulatory scrutiny and may even gain competitive advantage in a more transparent, tightly supervised market.
TThe future of financial integrity belongs to firms that move beyond compliance intent to verifiable performance. Navigating the tightening grip of MAR, MiFID II, and EMIR 3.0—while simultaneously mastering AI governance and cross-domain surveillance—requires more than just policy; it requires operational precision.
FD’s Regulatory Compliance & Surveillance practice is designed to bridge the gap between complex regulation and robust, audit-ready execution. If you are ready to transform your surveillance framework from a siloed necessity into a unified, data-driven competitive advantage, FD will help you build the roadmap and execute it with the discipline, speed, and impact the 2026 landscape demands.
