Softswiss Regulatory Trends 2026: the first-half recap for payments teams

The first half of 2026 brought three things high-risk PSPs care about most: new licensing regimes, higher gambling taxes, and more pressure on payments, AML, advertising, and player protection. If you sit anywhere between merchant onboarding and transaction monitoring, this is the part of the calendar where “regulatory update” starts meaning “commercial impact”.

1. In Europe, operators were preparing for the EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, which comes into force in July 2027. Finland also opened applications for its new competitive online gambling market, with private operators able to launch from July 2027 under a 22% tax rate, plus mandatory player identification, deposit limits, and a national self-exclusion register.
2. Ireland moved from legislative reform into implementation by opening its licensing process for betting operators. Betting licences became operational, while additional consumer protection measures — including advertising restrictions and a national exclusion register — will be rolled out gradually. For PSPs, the key point is that licence issuance and the surrounding compliance stack are no longer theoretical there.
3. Malta’s Article 56A, which is meant to shield Malta-licensed operators from certain foreign court judgments, faced further legal scrutiny at the Court of Justice of the European Union, with a final decision still pending. The European Commission also continues infringement proceedings against Malta, so the legal backdrop remains active rather than settled.
4. The Netherlands raised gambling tax to 37.8% and tightened licensing requirements, including mandatory exit plans and AML risk assessments. Regulators also said only around half of online gambling spend was channelled to licensed operators, which is the sort of number that tends to trigger more pressure on payments controls, not less.
5. Sweden expanded restrictions on credit-funded gambling and strengthened technical requirements for connecting to Spelpaus, its national self-exclusion register. The United Kingdom then delivered one of the biggest fiscal changes of the period, doubling Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40%; a new remote betting tax rate will follow in 2027, while horse racing betting keeps a lower rate.
6. Across the Americas, enforcement became the dominant theme. Brazil allowed authorities to direct banks and payment providers to block transactions and accounts linked to unlicensed gambling businesses, and financial institutions and advertisers may also face liability for supporting illegal operators. In Canada, Alberta finalised its regulated iGaming launch, requiring both regulatory registration and commercial onboarding before operators can enter the market. Chile, meanwhile, accelerated debate on its long-awaited online gambling bill.

For high-risk payments teams, the pattern is pretty clear: even where the headline is “licensing reform”, the operational burden lands on onboarding, transaction monitoring, account blocking, exclusion checks, and tax handling. In other words, regulation is no longer just a legal problem; it is increasingly a routing and risk problem.