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Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Finance and Economics

Financial Markets and Investment

Payments, market infrastructure and fintech

Payments, market infrastructure and fintech, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Payments, market infrastructure and fintech: foundations and practice

This area covers the systems that move money and securities, such as payment systems, clearing houses, central counterparties and settlement systems, and the fintech services built on them, including digital assets, open finance and regtech.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
In authoring
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Frames what supervisors will monitor as stablecoins grow, including multi-entity structures overseen by different authorities. Financial Stability Board, Global Stablecoin Arrangements: Cross-border vulnerabilities and financial stability monitoring, 12 October 2026

Learning outcomes

  1. Define financial market infrastructure and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain retail and wholesale payments and clearing and settlement with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against central counterparties, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. Retail and wholesale payments
    • Retail and wholesale payments
    • Clearing and settlement
    • Central counterparties
  2. Cross-border payments
    • Cross-border payments
    • Digital assets and tokenisation
    • Open finance
  3. Fintech operational risk
    • Fintech operational risk
    • Regtech and supervision
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • A central counterparty collects initial margin sized to price volatility over the time it needs to close out a defaulter; losses beyond margin under extreme but plausible stress are met by a default fund sized to the two largest members.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-T15 Distributed ledgers and digital assets risk
  • NRS-H110 Hazard family: Distributed ledgers and digital assets
  • NRS-M8 Method fabric: Financial risk

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C5 Scenarios and stress testing
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

References

  1. Financial Stability Board, Global Stablecoin Arrangements: Cross-border vulnerabilities and financial stability monitoring, 12 October 2026
  2. CPSS and IOSCO, Principles for financial market infrastructures, 2012
  3. Duffie and Zhu, Does a central clearing counterparty reduce counterparty risk?, 2011
02Live map

Connected activity in Middle East and North Africa

Night-time lights and population density, the footprint of electrified, connected activity, over Middle East and North Africa.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

Connected activity

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

Connected activity, framed on Middle East and North Africa.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • Optional layers (3 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

What is changing, with standards and evidence

Payments, market infrastructure and fintech: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed payments, market infrastructure and fintech between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Payments, market infrastructure and fintech: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Frames what supervisors will monitor as stablecoins grow, including multi-entity structures overseen by different authorities. Financial Stability Board, Global Stablecoin Arrangements: Cross-border vulnerabilities and financial stability monitoring, 12 October 2026

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in payments, market infrastructure and fintech since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce FSB reports to G20 on cross-border stablecoin vulnerabilities on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. FSB reports to G20 on cross-border stablecoin vulnerabilities
    • The FSB summarised monitoring of global stablecoin arrangements, which may become systemic across jurisdictions, covering their structure, transmission channels, candidate metrics and the limits of available data.
    • Frames what supervisors will monitor as stablecoins grow, including multi-entity structures overseen by different authorities.
    • Financial Stability Board, 12 October 2026
  2. BIS argues stablecoins fall short as money
    • The BIS Annual Economic Report chapter finds current stablecoin designs fall short on core properties of money and financial integrity, warns large redemptions could strain money markets, and proposes tokenisation within a two-tier system.
    • Sets out central bank thinking on tokenised settlement and stablecoin risks for payment system design.
    • Bank for International Settlements, 23 June 2026
  3. Eurosystem moves digital euro project to its next phase
    • The ECB Governing Council moved the digital euro into a phase focused on technical readiness and market engagement, preparing for potential first issuance in 2029 if EU legislation is adopted in 2026.
    • Signals possible changes to retail payment infrastructure, bank funding and operational resilience planning in the euro area.
    • European Central Bank, 30 October 2025
  4. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  5. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • AI models, tokenisation and regulatory technology.
    • Model risk, cyber accumulation, exposure to quantum attacks on cryptography, and concentration on third-party cloud providers.

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-T15 Distributed ledgers and digital assets risk
  • NRS-H110 Hazard family: Distributed ledgers and digital assets
  • NRS-M8 Method fabric: Financial risk

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C5 Scenarios and stress testing
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 5 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

References

  1. Financial Stability Board, Global Stablecoin Arrangements: Cross-border vulnerabilities and financial stability monitoring, 12 October 2026
  2. Bank for International Settlements, Anchoring trust in money: innovation beyond stablecoins (Annual Economic Report 2026, Chapter III), 23 June 2026
  3. European Central Bank, Eurosystem moving to next phase of digital euro project, 30 October 2025
  4. CPSS and IOSCO, Principles for financial market infrastructures, 2012
  5. Duffie and Zhu, Does a central clearing counterparty reduce counterparty risk?, 2011
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Financial market infrastructure

A system for clearing, settling or recording payments, securities or derivatives.

Term

Central counterparty

An entity that stands between the two sides of a trade and guarantees its completion.

Term

Settlement finality

The point at which a transfer becomes irrevocable.

Term

Tokenisation

Representing an asset or claim as a digital token on a ledger.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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