It appears that the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the governmental organization responsible for regulating the country’s financial market, is taking steps to further their involvement in the cryptocurrency industry as they seek to hire cryptocurrency specialists to join a couple of their divisions.

A couple of days ago, the UK Government published their new Economic Crime Plan for 2019-2020 in which they stated they would be taking action on crypto-assets to ensure they are not being used for money laundering and other illegal activity.

It seems they are very serious about this as the FCA has recently posted 2 job openings for a Cryptoasset Specialist Supervisor and a Crypto Intelligence Associate.

FCA On The Hunt For Specialized Talent

The Crypto Intelligence Associate will be be required to undertake intelligence support and advice to authorities in specific cases. The role is also described to involve “considerable amounts of liaison” with internal and external patterns on the topic of crypto-assets. Basically, they are looking for an in-house crypto specialist to help advise them on specific cases as their regulation increases.

The Cryptoasset Specialist Supervisor will be joining a new team that is dedicated to digital assets within the financial crime department. They are looking for someone with “excellent analytical and communication skills with a keen interest in crypto-assets and Distributed Ledger Technologies”.

The successful candidate will help formulate the approach for the financial crime division and will lead to regular anti-money laundering visits to firms. They will also have to create reports on how firms are managing their financial crime risk in the crypto space.

The Dots Connect

With these 2 job openings, it seems that the FCA continues its stance to regulate the cryptocurrency industry rather than to try and shut it out. The FCA is currently working on a “Guidance on Cryptoassets” report in which they hope to provide regulatory clarity for participants in the cryptocurrency market. This report is expected to be published at some point this summer.

These latest job openings also harden the vocal laissez-faire stance that the UK government have started to take regarding cryptocurrency assets.

This is further bolstered by the fact that the head of the UK’s Treasury, Philip Hammond, has recently come forward, saying that the UK will work with others to ensure that the upcoming Libra cryptocurrency (and other cryptocurrencies) are efficiently regulated. He also believes that if this works it could be “transformative in operating payment systems”.