FinregE Urges Crypto Firms to Overhaul Operations for FCA Regime

FinregE has released a strategic framework urging digital asset companies to speed up compliance work before the UK Financial Conduct Authority's cryptoasset regime takes effect. The consultancy warns that incremental policy tracking won't suffice — firms need wholesale operational changes.

The blueprint, titled Analysing the FCA Cryptoasset Regime 2026: The Way Forward, was written by Rohini Gupta, FinregE's CEO, and is available on the company's site. It contends that the industry suffers from a dangerous illusion of preparedness, mistaking familiarity with the FCA's published statements for genuine readiness.

The document outlines a five-step approach to meeting the new requirements:

• Conduct granular mapping of the regulatory perimeter to spot blind spots in staking and custody
• Build a systematic inventory of all obligations
• Assign each obligation to a named internal governance owner
• Perform a deep operational gap analysis
• Produce a compliance roadmap ordered by regulatory dependency, not calendar dates

FinregE emphasises that simulation exercises will be critical. The framework argues paper-based compliance checks won't pass muster under the new regime. Firms must model "severe but plausible" scenarios — validator slashing, smart contract exploits, Oracle manipulation — to satisfy the FCA's heightened operational resilience expectations.

Gupta positioned FinregE's own platform alongside the framework release.

The sheer volume of the FCA's policy statements can create a paralysis of analysis for even the most sophisticated firms. FinregE ROS was designed to break that cycle. We don't just notify you that a rule has changed, we provide the infrastructure to convert that regulatory noise into actionable intelligence.

The company's Moody's Corporation backing provides credibility in the regtech space, though FinregE did not disclose client counts or adoption figures tied specifically to the FCA cryptoasset regime.

The FCA's cryptoasset regime stems from the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, which granted the regulator powers to oversee digital asset activities. The regime extends Consumer Duty obligations and operational resilience standards already applied to banks and payment firms into crypto-specific areas. For digital asset companies previously subject only to lighter financial promotions rules, the compliance burden is substantial.

The international dimension complicates matters. The FCA has signalled a preference for UK-based legal entities, forcing overseas firms serving UK customers to choose between establishing a domestic presence and exiting one of the world's larger retail and institutional crypto markets. That decision overlaps with parallel regimes: the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation entered full application in late 2024, meaning many firms face dual obligations across two major jurisdictions at once.

The regtech market serving this compliance need is crowded. Several established vendors — large financial data providers and purpose-built compliance automation platforms — are targeting the same audience with workflow and obligation-mapping tools.

The 2027 implementation deadline means firms have limited time remaining. Governance restructuring, technical controls, and regulatory mapping all require lead times that stretch well beyond the final rule publication date. For some companies, the compliance preparation cycle may already be behind schedule.