In a complex and rapidly changing corporate communications environment, keeping an eye out for key industry trends and developments is critical. Here’s the Crystal team’s regular snapshot of some of the highlights and points of note from around the IFC and corporate comms world over the past month…

Channel Islands: a paper published by The CityUK found that Jersey and Guernsey play a vital role in strengthening the UK’s economic resilience and global competitiveness, helping to channel global capital into key areas of the UK economy.

Guernsey: Guernsey’s government published the Finance Sector Strategy 2035, which sets out a long-term, evidence-based approach to supporting sustainable growth in the jurisdiction’s financial sector.

UAE:  The Ministry of Finance announced a Ministerial Decision to add Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA)  as a competent authority for the purposes of qualifying activities related to fund management and wealth and investment management services.

Cayman Islands: Data published by the Cayman Islands General Registry showed that the number of active companies and partnerships in Cayman climbed to record levels in 2025, reflecting sustained growth in traditional fund structures and rising demand for vehicles designed for capital market access, insurance, digital assets and private wealth planning. The number of companies on the register increased by 2,081, or 1.7%, to 123,530, while new company registrations reached 13,306 – the highest annual figure since 2021.

BVI: The BVI reported continued momentum in 2025, with a focus on supporting global transactions across capital markets, investment funds, restructuring and digital-asset structures.

Luxembourg: Luxembourg promoted its “Ambitions 2030” strategy, highlighting its strengths in cross-border finance, wealth management and capital markets infrastructure.

EU: The Council of Europe’s AML body MONEYVAL released a report on the use of virtual assets in the laundering of criminal property and financing of terrorism, based on information from 25 jurisdictions.

Singapore: Singapore launched the world’s first agentic AI governance framework, whilst the country also announced its 2026 Budget, which included a S$1.5 billion top-up to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Equity Market Development Programme.

AI Image Generation: Google launched the next iteration of its Nano Banana AI-powered visual generation model with Nano Banana 2. It brings together various image generation tools into a single platform.