The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has approved the BCB Group’s main subsidiary, BCB Payments, to function as an authorized payment institution (API).
Including the API license from the FCA, BCB Group now possesses two licenses that will enable them to offer crypto related services in Europe.
Associate firm of BCB Payments, BCB OTC Trading SARL, is already licensed in Switzerland and monitored by the Financial Services Standards Association, a self-regulatory institution approved by the Federal Financial Market Supervisory Authority.
With the aforesaid licenses in place, BCB Group is the only institution regulated by two bodies and offering a unified bouquet of payment, custody and crypto trading services.
The company’s platform is incorporated with its custom built API (application programming interface) and integrated with Corda, the enterprise level blockchain network of R3.
In particular, BCB Group’s operations are concentrated on offering business-to-business payment facilities and liquidity in cryptocurrency market for institutional customers.
Currently, the company serves institutions such Coinbase, the US based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service provider, and Bitstamp, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange having operations primarily in Europe.
Other customers include Galaxy Digital, well-known crypto merchant bank, and Tagomi, a crypto broker firm.
Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, founder and CEO at BCB Group, has pointed out that the latest regulatory clearance indicates that the blockchain and crypto sector is able to expand while complying with “some of the most stringent regulations in force globally.”
Notably, few weeks before, the FCA announced that it has started overseeing whether crypto focused firms are complying with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) guidelines.
In this regard, on January 10, the UK’s financial regulator has become the country’s only AML authority for the crypto industry.