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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning on illegal crypto ATMs operating in the country. The U.K.’s financial regulatory body has ordered operators of Bitcoin ATMs to shut down their machines or risk facing further actions for non-compliance.
“We have warned operators of crypto ATMs in the UK to shut their machines down or face enforcement action,” the FCA wrote in a blog post on March 11, 2022. The financial watchdog cited the non-registration of Bitcoin ATM operators as the main reason for the order to shut down the machines.
Data from Coin ATM Radar indicate that there are 81 Bitcoin ATMs servicing crypto investors in the U.K., which are operated by eight companies, according to Cointelegraph. However, none of these companies have secured a license to offer crypto ATM services within the U.K.
“Crypto ATMs offering crypto-asset exchange services in the UK must be registered with us and comply with UK Money Laundering Regulations (MLR),” the FCA added. “None of the crypto asset firms registered with us have been approved to offer crypto ATM services, meaning that any of them operating in the UK are doing so illegally and consumers should not be using them.”
This isn’t the first time that the regulator shut down a Bitcoin ATM service. On November 15, 2021, the FCA handed a decision to Giliplus Limited which refused the latter’s application as a “crypto-asset exchange provider,” also known as a Bitcoin ATM service. The regulator said that Gidiplus did not meet the “conditions for registration” under the MLR law.
Gidiplus appealed with the Upper Tribunal to have FCA’s decision overturned but was unsuccessful. “The Upper Tribunal recently ruled against Gidiplus, a firm offering crypto ATM services, which wanted to continue trading, pending the Upper Tribunal’s determination of its appeal against us refusing its application for registration under the MLRs,” the FCA added. “The judge concluded that there was a ‘lack of evidence as to how Gidiplus would undertake its business in a broadly compliant fashion.”
