FCA hiring digital assets head for new oversight department

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The U.K. financial watchdog is set to form a new department that will focus exclusively on the digital currency industry, and it’s looking for a talented applicant who’s knowledgeable on digital assets to lead it.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has posted a new job opening for the head of the Department of Digital Assets. According to the LinkedIn posting, the new department will deal with emerging business models in the Supervision, Policy and Competition division.

“This successful candidate will be accountable for leading the FCA’s approach to regulatory interventions within the crypto firms in the UK, supervising innovative and complex business models of registered firms and dealing with unregistered cryptoasset businesses that may be involved in scams and frauds,” the watchdog stated.

The new digital assets head will help the FCA support innovation in the nascent sector “and help deliver the U.K. government’s vision on cryptoassets, influence future regulation, maintain market integrity and protect consumers as the popularity of crypto continues to increase,” the regulator added.

With this being a new department, the successful applicant will be expected to bring together a group of digital asset talents, pooled from within the FCA’s other divisions and beyond.

He will also lead the FCA’s regulatory efforts, including formulating a Bitcoin regulation regime. While the FCA has continued to crack down on digital asset firms, it has yet to issue definitive policies to govern the industry and has been handling issues on a case-to-case basis.

The regulator has been one of the most pronounced globally in its policing of the digital assets sector. It has been quick to call out firms that have been serving the U.K. public without obtaining the required licenses and even labeled quite a number as scams.

In its most recent move, it descended on digital asset ATM operators, ordering them to shut down their machines or risk further action. It claimed that it had not authorized any operator to offer such a service in the U.K. and they were all operating illegally. As CoinGeek reported, there are over 80 digital asset ATMs in the U.K. currently.

Watch: CoinGeek New York presentation, FYI: Better Information Tools for a More Lawful Blockchain Industry