Finland approves first five crypto service providers

According to Bitcoin.com, Finland recently approved the country’s first five crypto service providers.

According to reports, Finland’s cryptocurrency regulations are now fully effective. The Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) announced that it has approved the registration applications of five crypto service providers, namely Localbitcoins, Northcrypto, Prasos, Prasos Cash Management and Tesseract Group.

A FIN-FSA spokesperson confirmed that starting this month, the five virtual currency service providers will be the only operators offering services in the country.

Among them, Localbitcoins operates a global peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading market, Northcrypto provides Bitcoin and Litecoin euro exchange services. Tesseract Group (formerly Whalelend) provides asset management, OTC trading and lending services.

Prasos offers cryptocurrency trading and asset management services under four different brands . Coinmotion is an investment platform for crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Litecoin , Ethereum , Ripple and Stellar. It also provides private crypto banking, white label solutions and merchant services. There are also Bitcoin community Bittiraha, physical Bitcoin manufacturer Denarium and Bitcoin ATM network Bittimaatti.

FIN-FSA explained that “registration requires considerable efforts on the part of the applicant, for example in terms of customer due diligence and documentation of activities.”

During the registration process, the regulator will assess whether the applicant has appropriate measures in anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT), holding and maintaining customer assets, and whether it has an appropriate management structure. Registrants are required to submit a written statement to FIN-FSA describing how they will comply with these requirements. The regulator will also monitor compliance in the future.

The regulator’s website states that the Virtual Currency Providers Act (572/2019) came into force in Finland on May 1, establishing FIN-FSA as the “ registration and regulatory authority for virtual currency providers.” The law is based on the EU’s anti-money laundering legislation.