Standard Chartered and 56 others join EU crypto-asset register

Standard Chartered secured its authorization via Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier on June 25. By obtaining an Electronic Money Institution license alongside its MiCA status, the bank gained the ability to provide digital asset services throughout the European Union without seeking individual approvals in each country. Other notable additions to the registry include the institutional trading firm FalconX, authorized by Malta’s financial regulator, and the asset servicing giant CACEIS.

The completion of the MiCA transition period marks a turning point for the European market. Firms that failed to secure a license by the July 1 cutoff are now prohibited from onboarding new customers and must begin winding down regulated operations. This shift has already triggered structural changes, most notably the removal of Tether’s USDT from regulated exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken, as the stablecoin lacks a compliant path under the new rules. For institutional investors, the expanded ESMA list now serves as the definitive reference for identifying verified counterparties operating within a single, harmonized legal environment.