Crypto businesses that have filed to register with the United Kingdom FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] may continue operating beneath a temporary licensing regime for 6 months as the regulator deals with a backlog of apps.
Within an official update on Wednesday, the FCA added that those firms that began operating after 10th Jan. 2020, will be granted temporary registration over the time period from 9th Jan. 2021, until 9th July 2021.
The watchdog warned that those cryptocurrency firms that had not applied for registration by 16th Dec., this year, wouldn’t be eligible for the temporary regime.
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions on visits & therefore the “complexity and standard of the apps” received, the FCA added that it’s not been able to assess & register all the firms that applied.
Since earlier July this year, the FCA has been warning cryptocurrency businesses that it’ll need a min of 6-months to completely process applications before the hard deadline earlier in January 2021.
There had been fears within the industry that cryptocurrency firms could be left in no man’s land as the deadline looked set to pass with many applications still waiting to be processed.
Within the notice, the FCA also warned that those firms that haven’t applied by 16th Dec. must return cryptocurrency assets to users and stop trading by 10th Jan. 2021.
Companies failing to do so will be breaking the law and, “are subjected to being subject to the FCA’s criminal and civil enforcement powers.”
The FCA requires any firm completing activity associated with cryptocurrency assets within the United Kingdom to register & comply with AML [Anti-Money Laundering] & counter-terrorist financing requirements.
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