Australia’s ASIC looks to add more requirements for crypto exchanges to meet to obtain the financial services licenses to operate and comply with the amended Corporations Act.
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) plans to mandate crypto exchanges to obtain financial services licenses to operate in the country. That move will extend the requirements exchanges dealing with digital assets need to meet at the moment.
Alan Kirkland, ASIC Commissioner, feels these requirements are necessary since crypto assets like bitcoin (BTC) fall under the Australian Corporations Act. He expressed this at the AFR Crypto & Digital Assets Summit in Sydney on September 23.
His agency plans on revising its Corporations Act Sheet 225 soon to offer better insight into how those operating businesses around crypto assets and other related products can comply with the regulator. A lot of these businesses have not obtained the country’s financial services license, thinking they do not fall under the regulator’s purview. The clarification the ASIC is set to provide will also guide these businesses.
“Millions of Australians now hold crypto-asset investments and ASIC wants to make sure they have access to important consumer protections provided by the current regulatory regime,” Kirkland said.
Senator Andrew Bragg Slams Australia’s Approach to Handling Crypto
Senator Andrew Bragg called the Australian government out for not issuing crypto regulations and preventing the country from becoming a crypto leader. He left his thoughts on an X thread relaying snippets from his live address at the AFR Crypto & Digital Assets Summit.
“For reasons which still remain unclear to me, Labor and Mr Jones completely abandoned the CASSP consultation paper,” Bragg said, referring to Finance Minister Stephen Jones abandoning the formation of crypto regulations some time ago. “It should have led to the regulation of market operators and custody arrangements.”
He complained that the Labor Party would fail to create a crypto framework during the current term. “Labor has wasted three years by solely focusing on the needs of their close vested interests like unions and super funds.”
