Australian regulators, led by ASIC, are preparing legislation that will require cryptocurrency exchanges to obtain financial services licenses, expanding beyond current digital currency regulations, as ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland emphasized at the AFR Crypto and Digital Assets summit.

Australian regulators are moving toward a broader licensing regime for crypto businesses, with ASIC signalling that many cryptocurrency exchanges may need an Australian Financial Services Licence rather than only AUSTRAC registration. ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland was expected to use the Australian Financial Review Crypto and Digital Assets Summit to indicate that, under existing law, some widely traded crypto assets may already be treated as financial products, which would bring exchanges handling them into ASIC’s licensing framework. The key context is that Australia’s current crypto oversight is split: AUSTRAC covers anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing registration for digital currency exchanges, while ASIC regulates financial products and services under the Corporations Act. The proposed shift would potentially expand compliance obligations for exchanges and other crypto intermediaries, but the legal boundaries remain unclear because ASIC has not yet fully mapped which tokens are financial products or how firms should meet the corresponding licensing and disclosure rules. This matters because it could materially reshape the Australian crypto market, increasing regulatory costs and pushing exchanges to hold dual registrations where some assets are treated as financial products and others are not. It also signals that Australia is moving away from a light-touch digital-currency model toward one that places crypto activity more squarely inside mainstream financial-services regulation, a change likely to affect custody, trading, disclosures, and consumer protections.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Crypto in limbo as ASIC calls for licensing obligations on tokens? (legalink.net)
• Digital Asset Licensing & Crypto Compliance Services Australia (mintegrity.com.au)
• Digital assets: Financial products and services - ASIC (asic.gov.au)
• Crypto Licensing & Regulation - Shift Markets (shiftmarkets.com)
• Australia Crypto License 2026: AUSTRAC DCE & AFSL Requirements (gofaizen-sherle.com)

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