LONDON—The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the U.K’s financial regulator, has increased its investigations on cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country.
The regulator is intent on fishing out fraudulent virtual currency exchanges, BTC manager reported.
The U.K. financial watchdog is currently investigating 87 cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, BTC manger said, citing FCA data received from David Heffron, a partner at the international law firm Pinsent Masons.
“The number of cryptocurrency exchanges currently being investigated marks a sharp increase from the number of exchanges probed last year. In 2018, the FCA looked into 50 virtual currency companies that were suspected to be conducting businesses without the go-ahead of the regulator,” BTC manager said.
“The rise in investigations reflects the FCA’s increasingly hands-on and no-nonsense approach to enforcing the law in the cryptocurrency market. For cryptocurrency businesses acting lawfully, these statistics will be encouraging – they want bad actors pushed out. The FCA’s crackdown on businesses operating on its regulatory perimeter will instill a degree of confidence that products reaching consumers are less likely to be scams,” Heffron said.