The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that it plans to recover the equivalent of $8 million in fees arising from its oversight of stablecoins and crypto, according to a March 19 release.
The money will be recovered in the form of fees imposed on stablecoin issuers and digital asset custodians.
The regulator mainly plans to claw back £6.2 million ($7.9 million) in connection with new stablecoin regulations and a broader regime. In addition, the company will receive £0.2 million ($254,400) in return for expanding financial promotional opportunities. Both amounts fall under the plan’s ‘crypto assets’ category.
Together, the total costs to be recovered amount to £6.4 million ($8.1 million). The recovered funds will contribute to the FCA’s annual funding needs of £755 million ($960 million).
The recovery is part of the agency’s 12-month business plan, which sets out certain other regulatory objectives for the UK market. The FCA will also help establish a proportionate market abuse regime for digital assets and will continue its previous regime for crypto-financial promotions.
The entire business plan is broad in scope and extends far beyond crypto regulation. In particular, it includes plans to regulate digital markets and plans to assess the effects of AI on markets.
Previous developments
Previous developments provide context for some of the FCA’s plans. The costs associated with new regulations appear to be related to the stablecoin regulations that the agency began pursuing in November 2023.
The upcoming market abuse regime builds on rules that came into effect in 2016. These rules covered insider trading, unlawful disclosure and market manipulation, but were not initially aimed at the crypto sector. Britain has been considering extending these rules to crypto since February 2023.
The FCA has already introduced its financial promotions regime. These rules were applied to the crypto sector in October 2023. Some crypto companies have withdrawn from the UK market due to compliance issues; several other companies have been placed on a warning list.
After the UK FCA recovered $8 million in fees through fees paid to stablecoin issuers, custodians appeared first on CryptoSlate.