Financial Conduct Authority examines 50 British crypto companies

The Financial Conduct Authority conducts 50 investigations against operators of cryptocurrencies, including criminal investigations, while the British financial supervisory authority acts against a wave of fraud and unregulated activities.

The FCA announced on Thursday that in the six months to September last year it also carried out 300 examinations of non -authorized crypto companies.

The announcement comes because financial supervisory authorities around the world take a closer look at the digital asset industry to improve consumer protection and to contain the potential for money laundering in the still weakly regulated industry.

Consumers reported 4,300 potential crypto frauds from the FCA scamsmart website in the six months of last year, and more than the 1,600 reports for the second most common category related to pension transfers.

"The data we published today show how common fraud can be," said Sarah Pritchard, Executive Director of Markets at FCA.

The supervision of the crypto companies is mainly limited to ensuring that they comply with the anti-money laundering standards and to close unattended companies based in Great Britain. However, the FCA said there were considerable overlaps between non -authorized companies and fraudsters.

The supervisory authority has a list of almost 250 companies that “seem to be cryptoasset activities that are not registered with the FCA for the purposes of money laundering control”, although it said that this register probably only provides an incomplete image of the incomplete activities.

British politicians have increased the pressure on the FCA in recent months to proceed more decisively against crypto because the industry is growing quickly.

"Why do we leave.. Lord Browne of Ladyton, a Labor Peer and former cabinet minister, said on Wednesday in the House of Lords.

The demands for increased supervision are due to the fact that more and more British small investors are trying to do crypto investments.

A survey by the investment platform AJ Bell showed that 30 percent of crypto investors have more than 10 percent of their portfolio in digital assets, while a third says they are not willing to lose money in digital assets when investing. Investors have made these allocations even after the FCA repeatedly warned that people should only invest money that they are willing to lose in crypto.

The examination by AJ Bell also showed that half of the crypto investors have no Isa, while four out of ten have no pension. Laith Khalaf, head of the investment analysis at AJ Bell, said the finding "indicates that a high proportion of crypto investors will increase at the depth of the risk spectrum and that the basic components of a financial plan are bypassed".