The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has requested public feedback on proposed regulations for stablecoins and cryptocurrency custody.
In a May 28 request for comment, the United Kingdom’s financial regulator announced that its regulatory proposals are “the latest milestone on the road to crypto regulation.” The draft rules are based on prior roundtables and industry feedback. David Geale, executive director of payments and digital finance at the FCA, said the agency aims to support innovation while ensuring market trust:
“At the FCA, we have long supported innovation that benefits consumers and markets. At present, crypto is largely unregulated in the UK. We want to strike a balance in support of a sector that enables innovation and is underpinned by market integrity and trust.”
The FCA also noted it will work with the UK’s central bank to regulate stablecoins. Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden said, “For those stablecoins that expect to operate at systemic scale, the Bank of England will publish a complementary consultation paper later this year.”
The FCA said that its rules “aim to ensure regulated stablecoins maintain their value.” The regulator said customers must be clearly informed about how the backing assets are managed. It also recommended that stablecoin issuers appoint independent third-party custodians to hold reserve assets:
“We propose to require issuers to provide holders with the right to redeem qualifying stablecoins at par value with the reference currency, irrespective of the value of the backing assets portfolio, with a payment order placed to an account in the name of the holder at the latest by the end of the business day following receipt of a valid request.“
Breeden added that the FCA’s proposals are part of a broader effort to build the UK’s stablecoin regime.
The FCA’s proposals also introduce new requirements for firms providing crypto custody services, as outlined in a separate discussion paper. The rules are designed to ensure that user assets are secure and can be accessed at any time:
“The FCA’s proposals would require firms providing crypto custody services, who have responsibility for keeping consumers’ crypto safe, to ensure they are effectively secured and can be easily accessed at any time.“
Proposed measures also aim to reduce both the likelihood and impact of crypto firms failing, both in the crypto custody and stablecoin sectors. The ongoing efforts also follow the recent revelation by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves of plans for a “comprehensive regulatory regime” aimed at making the country a crypto leader.
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Baroness Michelle Mone says she will defy calls for her to step down from the House of Lords after PPE Medpro, a company founded by her husband, was ordered to repay £122m to the government for providing faulty PPE at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The peer has faced calls to stand down from MPsacross the political spectrum, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who earlier this week agreed with Baroness Mone’s contention that the government was pursuing a “vendetta” in trying to recover improper Covid funding.
“Too right we are,” she said in comments at the Labour Party conference.
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Baroness Mone ‘should resign’
In an extraordinary letter to the prime minister, Baroness Mone has accused Ms Reeves of endangering her and her family with her comments, citing the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess as evidence of the risks facing parliamentarians.
She also alleged ministerial interference in the civil and ongoing criminal investigations of PPE Medpro, and has called for an investigation into whether ministers have “improperly influenced” the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency.
In the letter, sent from the private office of Baroness Mone OBE and seen by Sky News, she addresses the prime minister directly, writing in a personal capacity “first as a wife, second as a mother, and lastly as a Baroness.”
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£122m bill that may never be paid
Referring to Ms Reeves’ comments, she writes: “The chancellor’s deliberate use of the term “vendetta”, a word connoting vengeance, feud and blood feud, is incendiary and has directly increased the risks to my personal safety…. My family and I now live with a heightened and genuine fear of appearing in public.”
She goes on to accuse Reeves and health secretary Wes Streeting of “falsehoods” in demanding that she hand back £122m, pointing out that she was never a director of PPE Medpro and “never received a penny from it personally.”
While the company was founded by her husband Doug Barrowman, a High Court judgement this week confirmed that Baroness Mone introduced it to the government’s VIP fast lane for PPE providers, and lobbied on its behalf in negotiations.
She has previously admitted that £29m of profit from the PPE contract was passed to a family trust of which she and her children are beneficiaries.
The peer has also accused the Prime Minister of “a total lie” when “you stated in Parliament that my children had received £29m into their bank accounts.”
Baroness Mone said that following these comments, she had received threatening and abusive communications, and cited the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack, who took her own life, as showing “the fatal consequences of personalised public vilification”.
“Your cabinet members, by repeating this knowingly false claim, are inciting hostility and inflaming public hatred against me.”
Image: Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman. Pic: PA
She has also accused the home secretary of influencing the NCA and Director of Public Prosecutions in unspecified meetings to discuss “high-profile cases”.
“That political influence is being brought to bear is, therefore, undeniable,” she said.
On Wednesday, PPE Medpro was ordered to repay £122m paid for 25 million surgical gowns that failed to meet sterility standards in breach of its contract with the Department of Health and Social Care.
PPE Medpro was put into administration the day before the judgment, with assets of just £666,000.
Asked if Baroness Mone would step down from the Lords, a spokesman said: “Those calling for Baroness Mone’s resignation from the House of Lords would be well advised to read the open letter sent this morning to the prime minister, which sets out how this has now become a personal attack and vendetta, politically motivated with loss of all balance and objectivity.”
Sky News has asked Number 10 and the Treasury for a response to the allegations made by Baroness Mone.