A regular snapshot from the Crystal team of some of the highlights and points of note for finance and corporate comms pros from around the jurisdictions this past month…

• Singapore: the Monetary Authority of Singapore updated its money laundering risk assessment as it continues to address the fallout from its largest ever money laundering scandal
• Funds Data: there was a significant deal in the funds data world, with Blackrock acquiring Preqin for £2.5bn
• Cayman: Hurricane Beryl caused widespread destruction across the Caribbean – though the Cayman Islands were largely spared significant damage.
• Luxembourg: media house Maison Moderne made some significant changes to its publishing strategy ahead of its 25th anniversary next year. PaperJam will remain its core brand whilst there will be a major focus on bilingual content across its channels, with its regular Delano and PaperJam newsletters merging in both English and French formats and with Delano ceasing to exist as a magazine.
• Channel Islands: both Guernsey and Jersey enjoyed successful visits from King Charles and Queen Camilla, putting both islands in the spotlight
• Jersey: after an assessment in late 2023, Jersey received a positive report from Moneyval on the jurisdiction’s ability to combat financial crime
• Luxembourg: Luxembourg’s financial intelligence unit processed 44,519 reports and blocked €609.4m in suspicious transactions in 2023, according to its annual report
• Social Media: Threads marked its first anniversary last month, with Meta claiming it now has a total of 175m users