The UK is building a regulatory framework more detailed than Europe’s MiCA: mandatory licences, capital stress tests and stablecoins under Bank of England supervision.
The Financial Conduct Authority published on Tuesday the definitive regulatory framework for companies operating in the digital asset sector in the United Kingdom. The window to apply for authorisation will open in September 2026 and close on 28 February 2027, with the regime fully operational from 25 October 2027. The public consultation on the guidelines closed on 3 June.
The scope is broad. Trading platforms, custodians, stablecoin issuers, staking providers and various intermediaries will all need to obtain FCA authorisation to continue operating. Firms already registered under anti-money-laundering rules will not have their status automatically converted: they will need to submit a new application. For firms already active in the market, so-called savings provisions will allow them to continue specified activities during a transitional period while their application is processed.
On substance, the framework introduces capital requirements with mandatory stress tests, strengthened rules against market manipulation and insider trading, and a simplification of prudential standards for stablecoin issuers. On that last point, the FCA has removed the obligation to provide estimated redemption forecasts, added a statutory trust requirement on reserves and eliminated unallocated reserve accounts. Issuers will be permitted to hold a 5% excess in the backing asset pool. David Geale, the FCA’s executive director for payments and digital finance, described the outcome as a regime in which firms “can have both regulatory certainty and room to innovate” – an argument that anyone who followed the MiCA process in Europe will recognise as standard from any authority seeking to attract operators without relinquishing control, according to Geale.
DeFi remains at the margins of the perimeter for now. Matthew Long, the FCA’s director for payments and digital assets, stated that so-called “true DeFi” – meaning activity with no identifiable person carrying it out – will be excluded from regulation, but that the approach will be case by case. The FCA will open a separate consultation on DeFi and operational resilience for firms using distributed ledger technology. In July the regulator will hold a webinar presenting the policy statements; in September it will publish a further document on the regulatory perimeter.
