According to a peer review published on Thursday, 10 July, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has pointed out where the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) failed with regard to authorising crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) in Malta under ‘MiCA’, the regulation on crypto-asset markets.
“It is unclear to the PRC [peer review committee] why MFSA did not leverage on the authorisation process to ensure that the entity would remedy key deficiencies before the authorisation would be effective”, reads the ESMA report. It believes that the overall authorisation process should have been more thorough and conducted with sufficient time to allow the MFSA to properly assess compliance with the ‘MiCA’ regulatory framework.
ESMA encourages national competent authorities to regularly share [information with each other] via the Digital Finance Standing Committee (or other relevant standing committees at the EU level) and to take advantage of the experiences and guidance shared via this committee.
“We view this as an opportunity to reinforce our processes and procedures with respect to this innovative sector”, the MFSA stated in response in the review.
Read the review: https://aeur.eu/f/huu (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)