meta_id 3297156

On July 3, 2026, the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) released its 2026 report on financial market infrastructures and payment service providers, emphasising that operational resilience is critical to financial stability amid an evolving threat landscape. The report identifies increasing cyber threats, evolving fraud patterns, greater dependence on third-party technology providers, and heightened geopolitical and physical security risks as key challenges facing the sector. The NBB highlights that robust governance, effective crisis communication, and regular testing of contingency arrangements are essential to ensure the continuity of critical services during severe stress scenarios. Recent sector-wide crisis simulations demonstrated that resilience depends not only on technology but also on people, governance, and well-tested procedures. The report notes that operational resilience can no longer be viewed exclusively through a digital lens, with growing attention required for physical security, insider threats, critical site protection, and the resilience of data centres and other essential facilities. Payment fraud continues to evolve rapidly, with the digitalisation of payments, rise of remote payment methods, and increasingly sophisticated social engineering techniques driving a sharp increase in fraud, particularly relating to online credit transfers and card payments. The report also highlights a key development: Belgian legislation strengthening oversight of financial messaging service providers, such as Swift, entered into force this year. This new law grants the NBB stronger oversight powers, which it will apply in cooperation with other G10 central banks. The NBB emphasises that financial market infrastructure operators, payment service providers, and messaging services must identify emerging vulnerabilities early, maintain effective internal controls, and ensure essential services remain secure, reliable, and functional during periods of heightened stress.