South Africa FSCA greenlights 59 crypto licenses

South Africa’s financial regulator, the FSCA, has approved 59 license applications from cryptocurrency facilities seeking to serve local residents. According to reports, the FSCA received 493 license applications, but only 199 were complete, leaving 262 pending.

Citing the heavy flow in the market, the FSCA’s regulating authority set November 30th as the deadline for crypto exchanges and digital platforms to submit permit applications or face law enforcement mechanisms.

FSCA approval process overview

The processing of FSCA applications has already been going on continuously, and every step is being executed continuously because of the high demand. The FSCA will bring the crypto sector under the FAIS regime for monitoring and regulation purposes.

The regulations have been designed to include core elements of the crypto business, such as consumer protection and regulation, which can be seen in the forceful actions taken when consumers are at risk. Although the exact details of the authorized companies have not yet been revealed, these companies include crypto platforms and firms offering storage services. The authority body will supervise crypto brokerage firms and payment processors involved in cryptocurrency transactions in compliance with the above regulations.

Growing popularity and adoption

Crypto regulations have been the subject of the discussions in South Africa since 2021, where the most possible framework for this industry is being conjured.In the 2021, the FSCA authored a paper, which elaborated that crypto assets will be dealt with in a phase-by-phase manner via an ordered graph.

Despite the cryptocurrency framework being scheduled for completion by the end of 2022, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has recognized cryptocurrencies not as a national Currency but as financial assets.

The FSCA takes this classification criteria on its shoulders and they states that digital assets will be treated as finacial items. South Africa’s management of cryptocurrencies as a nation tends to become more practical as adoption gains popularity.

The survey carried out in 2017 proved that, about 47% of South African population were those who had invested in crypto or those aspiring to do so. Furthermore, their Country Share of Google Bitcoin wallets download increased by 100% in the two years. In 2020, crypto exchange Luno revealed that South Africa, among all the nations in the world, takes the third highest level of crypto  ownership with 13%.

In the meantime, crypto pioneers such as South Africa’s commercial entities are very actively involved in this currency. Sitch, a native South African payments infrastructure firm, enabled cryptocurrency payment (“Pay with Crypto”) to its product line last year, allowing customers to use cryptocurrencies to buy things.