Crypto Companies Win Exemptions From Some UK Finance Rules

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority is reportedly planning to exempt cryptocurrency companies from some of its rules.

David Geale, executive director for payments and digital finance at the FCA, said a “lift and drop” of traditional finance rules would not be effective when applied to the crypto industry, the Financial Times reported Wednesday (Sept. 17).

The FCA proposals, detailed in a new consultation paper, are designed to adapt its existing rules to the nature and risks of crypto assets, the report said.

“We start from the principle that if it is the same risk, you go for the same regulatory outcome,” Geale said, per the report, emphasizing that any changes would not mean lower standards.

“But then you have to recognize that some of these things are very different,” he said, according to the report, adding that because crypto assets have a different underlying technology and characteristics than traditional finance, they require different regulations.

Many of the FCA’s chief principles will not apply to crypto trading platforms, including stipulations that a company “must conduct its business with integrity,” with “due skill, care and diligence” and “pay due regard to the interest of its customers and treat them fairly,” the report said.

Crypto companies will also face more relaxed requirements than banks or investment firms when it comes to rules for their senior managers, systems and controls. The FCA said this is because “crypto asset firms do not typically pose the same level of systemic risk,” according to the report.

However, the FCA will adopt more stringent rules for the crypto industry in other areas, such as regulations governing operational risks like IT outages or cyber attacks, the report said.

The watchdog said the historic theft of $1.5 billion from wallet provider Bybit in February underscored the need for “strong operational resilience controls across all crypto firms,” according to the report.

Elsewhere in the U.K. crypto space, the Bank of England’s plans to limit how many stablecoins individuals and businesses can hold.

Stablecoins could grow large enough to threaten the stability of the financial system if left unchecked, the central bank said. The fear is that stablecoins could act as a channel for destabilized credit flows, loss of public trust in money or contagion in financial markets.