The United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published final guidance on Wednesday, September 16, spelling out which crypto activities will require authorization once the country's cryptoasset regime takes effect in 2027. The release came within a day of the Home Office and HM Treasury committing £500 million over three years to combat money laundering, a problem both departments say has been escalated by the rise of AI and crypto. For an industry that has so far operated under anti-money-laundering registration rather than full financial-services authorization, the announcements set both the boundary of the coming rulebook and the enforcement machinery behind it.

What the final guidance covers

In policy statement PS26/18, the FCA listed the activities that fall within the scope of the future regime, which rests on the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Regulations 2026, passed by Parliament on February 4. Those activities include issuing qualifying stablecoins, operating trading platforms, dealing and arranging deals in cryptoassets, safeguarding customer cryptoassets, and arranging staking.

The regulator cautioned firms not to assume that their current status will carry over. Registration under the Money Laundering Regulations, for instance, does not automatically confer full authorization under the Financial Services and Markets Act. The FCA advised firms — including overseas businesses serving UK consumers, e-money issuers, and traditional finance firms testing crypto markets — to seek independent legal advice where they need to work out which permissions apply to them.

“We are building a crypto regime that firms, consumers and international partners can trust,” said David Geale, the FCA's executive director of consumers, payments and competition, adding that the final guidance gives firms “the clarity they've asked for.”

Authorization gateway opens September 30

According to the FCA, its authorization gateway opens on September 30. Firms that apply before February 28, 2027, can use transitional arrangements, while those that miss the window and the transitional provisions may have to pause operations until they secure the appropriate clearance. The full regime takes effect on October 25, 2027.

A further consultation is scheduled for October, covering stablecoins, proprietary trading, certain technology providers, decentralized protocols and financial promotions. For firms, that consultation will be the next scheduled checkpoint on how the regime will treat those activities.

£500 million money laundering task force

On Tuesday, the Home Office and HM Treasury unveiled their own £500 million enforcement push, enlisting 500 new officers from police forces, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Crown Prosecution Service. Funding for the Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy is expected to be drawn from the economic crime levy on regulated firms over three years, meaning the enforcement push is paid for by the regulated sector rather than general taxation.

The Home Office noted that money laundering, which the NCA estimates at more than £100 billion moving through UK or British corporate structures every year, “has grown in recent years from the rise of fintech, crypto and AI.” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood placed “the criminal bosses behind organised crime” at the top of the program's hit list, rather than their foot soldiers.

Where crypto fits in

Crypto is not incidental to the strategy. The new officers will build on Operation Destabilise, the NCA's investigation into Russian-speaking networks that convert street cash into crypto for organized crime. According to GOV.UK, the operation's running tally stands at 119 suspected launderers arrested and more than £25 million in cash and crypto seized in under a year. Cryptoassets rank third among the nine economic crime priorities the NCA agreed with the Treasury and the FCA, and the regulator is set to take on a bigger role in that fight.

Spotlight on Corruption, an anti-corruption charity, said the strategy would turn the FCA into an anti-money laundering “super-regulator” for lawyers, accountants and company formation agents. Steve Smart, the FCA's enforcement and market oversight director, backed the plan, saying “a whole-system effort, both at home and abroad, is the only way we can crack down on organised crime.”

Source: Cryptopolitan