financemagnates.com
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).
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 fielding complaints from French customers, the regulator said.
This new rule is part of the 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.
AMF said it 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,” AMF said in a statement released on Friday.
Other Changes to the Policy
In the revised version of the policy, 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.
The regulator added that the policy also stresses the need for the providers to monitor the nature of the digital assets they offer as services for as long as their offerings stand.
AMF also 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 also 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,” AMF added.