UK FCA Consults on Crypto Perimeter Guidance, Closes Nov. 18

The UK Financial Conduct Authority on October 21 published consultation paper CP26/36, draft guidance on the perimeter of the country's new crypto regime: which services will need a licence and which fall outside it. Feedback is open until November 18, 2026, and the FCA expects to publish final guidance in January 2027.

Details

The paper explains how recent legislative changes affect the cryptoasset perimeter. The new exclusions that need no authorisation include temporary settlement arrangements, temporary holding of UK qualifying stablecoins for payments, proprietary trading where no service is provided to others, and "technical services that merely allow access to services provided by a third party or to a decentralised protocol." The window to apply for authorisation runs from September 30, 2026 to February 28, 2027, and the regime itself starts on October 25, 2027.

According to Skadden, the FCA expanded its guidance on what counts as "arranging" deals, and information-only services are unlikely to qualify. The regulator also acknowledges uncertainty around the technical-services exclusion and lets firms materially affected submit incomplete applications and complete them later.

CryptoSlate reads the draft as meaning an app could need a licence if its algorithm chooses the venue or route for a customer's trade. That is the outlet's interpretation; we could not confirm that wording in the parts of the document available to us.

What it means for the market

For crypto apps and DeFi aggregators in the UK, the key question is where a neutral technical service ends and an intermediary begins. The industry has until November 18 to influence the final text. The FCA is also running a separate DeFi consultation.

This is not investment advice.