EU Commissioner: Crypto Regulations Need to Be Sped Up and Standardized

EU financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness urged US lawmakers to create comprehensive new crypto regulations and international industry standards.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, the head of financial services for the European Commission spoke about the potential threats digital assets could pose to financial stability if allowed unchecked.

Call for global crypto regulations and standards

McGuinness said, “We do need to see other players also legislating, perhaps differently, but with the same objective…We need to look at global regulation of crypto.”

While the chief expressed optimism that the US politicians are “moving in the same direction” as the EU, she remarked, “There’s a lot of concern at a European level as to [what will happen] if crypto were not to be regulated.”

“There could be — in time, if it grows — financial stability problems. There also are investor issues around a lack of certainty,” the paper quoted McGuinness. In another recent interview, the Justice Department’s crypto lead, Eun Young Choi, also raised ‘serious national security concerns’ from crypto exploits and DeFi scams.

U.S. Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper wrote to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just last week to ‘take action’ around the supervision of the new asset class.

In the past, the Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman, also called for global cooperation on crypto regulations.

Are the US and the EU on the same page?

With the EU’s implementation of the much-discussed Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, the U.S. Congress is yet to pass a bill that provides similar statutory clarity.

In addition, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international agency that oversees the global financial system, put out nine crypto regulation proposals that it hopes G20 nations will implement before the end of crypto winter last week.

Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive of the UK Financial Conduct Authority, stated that the regulator has “rigorously applied new money-laundering standards” while warning consumers of its potential risks. Meanwhile, the watchdog is also keeping an unauthorized firm warning list. The FCA also opened 2,724 investment cases, according to its annual report covering consumer investments strategy, placing restrictions on twice as many investment companies compared to last year.

However, through the last financial year, 8,568 alleged crypto scams were reported to the organization.