With its digital asset division, SG Forge, becoming the first organization to be granted a full Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) license by the French financial regulator, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), banking giant Societe Generale has made significant progress in the world of cryptocurrencies. An statement on the AMF’s official website states that the license enables SG Forge to provide a variety of crypto-related services, including custody, trading, and sales, starting on July 18.
The French financial watchdog has received registrations from a number of cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, Voyager, and Bitstamp, but only SG Forge has been granted a DASP license. The difference is made by the AMF’s explicit separation of registration from licensing for French suppliers of digital asset services. Companies must follow strict guidelines on organizational structure, financial capacity, and behaviour in order to get a license. According to SG Forge’s news release, this licensing procedure is the “highest level of regulatory certification currently possible” for crypto-related operations since it shows a better level of conformity with AMF’s regulatory norms than registration does.
For SG Forge’s Euro CoinVertible (EURCV), the first institutional stablecoin to be deployed on the Ethereum public blockchain by the banking giant’s digital asset division, receiving the DASP license is a significant advancement.
The license will allow the business to provide institutional customers services that conform to the highest standards of compliance and banking security, according to Jean-Marc Stenger, CEO of SG Forge, who highlighted the importance of this milestone.
On a more general regulatory level, the European Council approved the Markets in Cryptoassets (MiCA), a comprehensive set of crypto regulations for the European Union, on May 16. On May 31, a separate regulation intended to limit the use of cryptocurrency for money laundering became a part of the comprehensive regulatory framework for the developing crypto industry.
All cryptocurrency service providers operating inside the EU will need to receive a complete license from a member state by January 2025 once the EU adopts the MiCA guidelines. By obtaining the DASP license, SG Forge is putting itself in a better position to satisfy the expanding compliance requirements of the cryptocurrency sector and demonstrating its commitment to doing so ahead of this regulatory deadline.
The financial industry will be keenly monitoring the effects of the DASP license and its role in determining the future of cryptocurrency regulation in Europe as Societe Generale’s digital asset business paves the way for cryptocurrency-related services in France and abroad.
