Posted Sep 29, 2022, 5:56 PM
It’s a first. The stock market watchdog, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), has just decided to delist a PSAN (Digital Asset Service Provider) for serious failures. The Bykep platform (formerly Keplerk) will no longer be able to operate in France. Registered in 2021, the start-up offered to buy, hold and resell cryptoassets. It had the particularity of having developed a service allowing you to buy a coupon with cash from tobacconists, to then validate it on an account and receive bitcoins. A way to make bitcoin and cryptocurrencies accessible to the general public. At the same time, the AMF delisted the Emmanuel Management platform, but for cessation of activity.
Bykep is guilty of serious malfunctions, as revealed by the checks carried out by the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR) last May. The banking policeman noted “operations carried out at the debit of customer wallets without their consent”. The investigators also noted “serious shortcomings in the system for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism”. In particular, they pointed to flaws in the company’s know-your-customer procedures, as well as in the review of risky transactions and the freezing of assets.
The AMF may deregister a PSAN, on the assent of the ACPR, on its own initiative or on the initiative of the ACPR, when the service provider no longer complies with the obligations relating to registration.
Theft of digital assets
In addition, on September 8, the company informed the services of the AMF and the ACPR of a theft of digital assets by computer attack, which would concern a substantial part of the assets of its customers, for an estimated value by the company at approximately 300,000 euros on the supposed date of the theft. The AMF has asked the company to inform its customers as soon as possible and is closely monitoring this file. Legal action may be taken.
Currently, the AMF has registered 54 PSANs. The latest is the American giant Crypto.com along with 5 other players including Société Générale Forge and the Viennese Trade Republic.
For the moment, in Europe, only France, with the Pacte law, regulates platforms. Since 2019, these PSANs, when they are aimed at the French public, must be registered with the AMF. But the stock market policeman is content with targeted checks on the good repute (checking the identity, criminal record in particular), the competence (sworn statement, curriculum vitae) of the company’s managers and significant shareholders, and on the mechanisms for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. France has set up a second level of control, by offering a more restrictive approval, but this time optional.
At the beginning of July, in extremis before the end of the French presidency of the European Union, Brussels adopted the MiCa regulation. The latter decreed that crypto-asset service providers will now need an authorization issued by national supervisors.
