French Financial Regulators Blacklist Crypto Trading Websites

France’s top financial regulators have added a number of crypto trading websites to a blacklist of firms operating in France “without proper authorization.”

The list is co-curated by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), France’s stock market trading regulator. It is co-authored by the Banque de France’s Prudential Supervisory and Resolution Authority (ACPR). The ACPR polices France’s banking and insurance sectors.

In an update posted on the ACPR website yesterday, the regulators wrote:

“In 2022, the AMF and the ACPR added 49 names to the list of sites that are not authorized to offer Forex investments, vs 61 in 2021, and 2 names in the cryptoasset derivatives category, down significantly compared to 2021 with 24 websites added.”

The blacklist comprises “unauthorized” firms offering crypto derivatives in France. It also comprises unregulated forex and securities platforms.

French Regulators’ Blacklist of Unregulated Crypto Platforms ‘Not Complete’

The regulators believe the blacklisted firms made “unsolicited” efforts to contact potential new clients in France.

But the regulators warned that their list was not exhaustive. They remarked that their list was “updated regularly.” But, they said, the list is “not intended to be complete, as new unauthorized entities appear regularly.”

They added that unregulated crypto operators could pose dangers to users. They “strongly recommended,” the public not to “make use of the services” of firms whose names do not appear on the ACPR’s Financial Firms Register.

The regulators stated that any firm not on the register but offering crypto, forex, or securities trading in France was “in breach of the applicable legislation” and was thus “not required to comply with basic rules of investor protection, information disclosure, and claims handling.”

The regulators have previously granted operating permission to larger-name crypto players, including Binance’s French arm, Bitpanda, and eToro. It also granted a permit to FORGE, the crypto custody subsidiary of the French banking heavyweight Societe Generale.

Earlier this month, French police claimed they had caught two notorious crypto scammers who preyed on victims in exclusive ski resorts and luxury hotels.