FCA hails positive impact of P2P regulation for cryptos

THE Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) director of strategy and competition has cited peer-to-peer lending regulation as a benchmark for its approach to cryptoassets.

Speaking at the LendIt Fintech conference in London, Chris Woolard (pictured) said the FCA wants the UK to be a “good place” for cryptoassets but it must be safe for consumers.

He highlighted that the way P2P platforms have become authorised shows that regulation is not to be feared.

“Sometimes good, well-applied regulation helps grow your markets,” he said.

Woolard added that there was no suggestion that specific P2P rules could be translated to cryptoassets.

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“We want the UK to be a good place where you can use crypto technologies and the products that come from it,” he said.

“At the same time you want it to be safe for consumers.

“If you take initial coin offerings, we have some that clearly fall inside our securities laws, there are a lot of others that are on the margin and some outside. We need to make those boundaries much clearer.”

It comes after the government’s cryptoassets taskforce – which consists of the Treasury, the FCA and the Bank of England – suggested crypto companies, including those offering P2P lending, could face more stringent anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, as the government mulls transferring compliance oversight to the City watchdog.

The taskforce has proposed bringing fiat-to-cryptoasset exchange firms and custodian wallet providers within the scope of AML and counter terrorist financing regulations.

The government has asked the FCA to consider taking on the role of supervising firms in fulfilling their AML/CTF obligations.

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