UK’s financial regulator has given digital-asset businesses a clearer map of what will count as a regulated activity under the country’s incoming crypto framework. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published perimeter guidance explaining which firms will need full authorisation once the new regime takes effect, even as many high-street banks continue to restrict or refuse payments linked to crypto platforms.
The guidance is intended to help companies judge whether their work falls inside the regulatory boundary.
Covered activities include issuing qualifying stablecoins, running crypto trading venues, dealing in or arranging deals in cryptoassets, safeguarding customer holdings, and arranging staking.
The regime itself is scheduled to start on 25 October 2027. Applications for authorisation open on 30 September 2026 and, for firms that want transitional cover while their files are reviewed, must be submitted by 28 February 2027.
That timetable matters because existing anti-money laundering registrations will not convert automatically into the new permissions.
Businesses already on the FCA’s crypto register still need to apply if they want to carry on newly specified activities after the start date.
Firms already authorised for other financial services may instead need a variation of permission.
The regulator has also said it will consult in October on limited updates after the government made targeted legal changes, including some exclusions for technical service providers.
The rulebook published earlier in 2026 is designed to pull much of the sector closer to conventional financial services standards.
Trading platforms, custodians, intermediaries, stablecoin issuers and staking providers are expected to meet capital and stress-testing requirements, market-abuse controls, operational-resilience rules and consumer-protection duties.
After consultation, some proposals were eased, including a lower capital floor for non-systemic stablecoin issuers.
Larger, systemically important sterling stablecoins sit in a joint Bank of England and FCA framework.
Clarity at the regulator has not, however, ended friction at the bank counter.
Several major UK retail banks still cap, delay or block transfers to crypto exchanges.
Restrictions vary by institution: some allow Faster Payments subject to monthly limits, while others refuse outbound payments altogether.
Industry reporting has put the number of large banks with some form of crypto-related restriction in the high single digits, and research has suggested a substantial share of bank-to-exchange transfers are still blocked or delayed.
Official policy stops short of forcing banks to serve every licensed crypto firm.
Ministers have said they do not expect registered businesses to face blanket account or payment bans, but banks retain their own risk assessments for fraud, financial crime and operational exposure.
FCA authorisation of an exchange therefore does not, by itself, lift a customer’s transfer limit or compel a bank to process the payment.
The result is an awkward gap between market design and market access.
Policymakers want the United Kingdom to look like a competitive, well-supervised place to build digital asset businesses.
Firms now have a published perimeter, a defined application window and a known start date.
Yet many customers and companies still struggle to move sterling into the very platforms that will soon need a licence to operate. Until banks treat authorised crypto activity as ordinary regulated commerce rather than an automatic red flag, the new rulebook will be only half the story.