French Regulator AMF Toughens Criteria for Authorizing DASPs

The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), France’s financial markets watchdog, says it has toughened its “substantive criteria” for authorizing digital asset service providers (DASPs).

The AMF says DASPs must mandatorily use a language that can be understood by all French customers in their marketing materials.

This language requirement also applies to the providers’ communication when handling complaints from French customers, the regulator said.

This new rule is part of an update the market supervisor just made to its policy on the digital asset service providers regime.

However, it pointed out that the policy, codenamed AMF Position DOC-2020-O7, remains a work in progress and maybe updated regularly, depending on the issues raised by stakeholders.

The AMF said it had made the policy revision to reflect changes in the products and business models of players in the country’s digital assets industry.

“Some provisions have been clarified, while those that have become obsolete have been removed,” the AMF said in a statement released on Friday.

In the revised version of the policy, the AMF said it stressed the need for companies that want to register as DASPs to ensure the assets they are offering are indeed digital assets.

Additionally, the regulator added that the policy stresses the need for providers to monitor the nature of the digital assets they offer as services for as long as their offerings stand.

Moreover, the AMF said the section of the policy that answers questions on marketing has been completed.

The goal, it added, is to clarify the concept of promotional marketing that enables a digital asset service to be located in France.

“The AMF also states that the use of an Application Programming Interface (API) does not rule out the qualification of the digital asset custody service or other digital asset services. Services should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis,” it explained in the statement.

Additionally, the regulator said it has added a new question to the policy.

This question, it said, clarifies the extent to which services may be provided when DASPs allow their customers to participate in staking or crypto lending.

“Lastly, questions related to transitional provisions or provisions that were in force prior to 1 May 2021 have been removed because they are now obsolete,” the AMF added.