The scope is broad. As detailed by Areg Nzsdejan, CEO of Cardamon in a recent LinkedIn post, the regime touches stablecoin issuance, trading venues, custody arrangements, staking activity and market abuse provisions, effectively drawing crypto activity into a regulatory perimeter that mirrors traditional financial services in ambition, if not always in detail.
For firms already operating in the UK, the practical consequence is a hard deadline. The application window for authorisation opens on 30 September and closes on 28 February 2027. Firms that fail to apply within that window face a stark choice: cease operating until authorisation is granted, or exit the UK market altogether.
Crucially, existing Money Laundering Regulations registration will not carry firms through automatically. Even businesses that have operated compliantly under the current anti-money laundering regime will need to submit a fresh application under the new framework, effectively resetting the compliance clock for the entire industry.
The strategic implication is significant. With a finite and well-publicised deadline now in place, firms that move early to understand and map their obligations stand to gain a meaningful head start over slower-moving competitors, particularly given the scale of the documentation involved across five policy statements.
That is the gap RegTech start-up Cardamon, a member of Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 cohort, is positioning itself to fill. The company says it can take the FCA’s regulatory text and translate it into a firm-specific compliance map, a process it claims can be completed in minutes rather than the weeks or months typically required for manual legal review.
Whether firms choose automated tools, external counsel, or in-house compliance teams to navigate the new regime, the direction of travel is now unambiguous. The FCA has set the rules and the timetable; it is now down to industry to move fast enough to meet them.
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
