Tag: REGULATION

Keywords. MiCA, CASP, MiCA Article 60, MiCA fast-track procedure, CASP notification.

Since December 30, 2024, the provision of crypto-asset services in the European Union requires authorization as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA).

For certain already regulated financial players, Article 60 of MiCA nevertheless provides for a faster route: certain crypto-asset services may be provided upon completion of a notification procedure, in principle 40 working days after it is filed, without going through the full CASP authorization procedure.

Strictly speaking, this is therefore not a “fast-track MiCA license”, but a mechanism that relies on an existing financial authorization.

Are you eligible for the MiCA fast-track procedure?

The Article 60 procedure is not open to all regulated undertakings.

Only six categories of entities are eligible:

• credit institutions, for all crypto-asset services;
• central securities depositories, solely for the custody and administration of crypto-assets;
• investment firms, for services equivalent to those covered by their MiFID II authorization;
• electronic money institutions, solely for the custody and administration, as well as the transfer, of electronic money tokens (EMTs) that they issue;
• market operators, for the operation of a trading platform;
• UCITS management companies and authorized AIFMs, for portfolio management, investment advice, and the reception and transmission of orders.

A payment institution that holds none of the statuses referred to in Article 60 will therefore have to follow the ordinary CASP authorization procedure.

What must be prepared for an Article 60 notification?

The procedure is streamlined, but an Article 60 notification remains a substantial regulatory filing.

The entity must demonstrate that it is ready to provide the envisaged services and has an appropriate organization. The notification includes, in particular, a programme of operations, information relating to internal control and AML/CFT, a business continuity plan and information on IT systems and their security (MiCA, art. 60(7)).

Additional documents are required depending on the services concerned. For example, a custody service entails documenting the custody policy and the segregation of clients’ crypto-assets, while an order execution service implies an execution policy.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/303 specifies the level of detail expected, in particular regarding the program of operations for the three years following the notification, the categories of clients targeted, the jurisdictions targeted, and the human, financial, and IT resources allocated to the project.

The challenge is therefore to prepare upstream a file sufficiently advanced to be considered complete as soon as it is filed. Information already provided to the competent authority does not, however, have to be resubmitted where it is identical and still up to date (MiCA, art. 60(9)).

Can crypto services really be launched in 40 days?

Compliance with this timeline depends directly on the completeness of the file.

• Day 0 – Filing of the notification.

It must be sent to the competent authority at least 40 working days before the first provision of the services concerned (MiCA, art. 60(1) to (6)).

In France, it is filed with the ACPR for credit institutions, investment firms and electronic money institutions, and with the AMF for central securities depositories, market operators and management companies falling within its remit (CMF, art. L. 54-10-7, II and III).

• Within 20 working days – Completeness check.

The competent authority verifies that the required information has been provided.

• If the file is incomplete – Suspension of the time limit.

The competent authority requests the missing information and sets a deadline that may not exceed 20 working days. The 40-working-day period is suspended until the expiry of that deadline. Any subsequent requests for additional information or clarification do not further suspend that period, but the services may not commence for as long as the notification remains incomplete (MiCA, Article 60(8)).

• On expiry of the time limit – Launch.

Unlike the standard CASP authorization, MiCA does not provide for a formal decision granting a new authorization at the end of the notification. Once the notification is complete and the applicable time limit has expired, the entity may begin providing the notified services.

However, the right to provide the notified services ceases upon withdrawal of the authorization on which that right is based (MiCA, Article 60(11)).

An advantageous mechanism within a precisely defined framework

Article 60 offers a twofold advantage: it speeds up market access and avoids certain requirements specific to the ordinary CASP authorization.

Beyond its value for players that are already eligible, Article 60 may constitute a genuine regulatory structuring lever for a crypto project.

Depending on the business model and the services envisaged, various strategies may be considered: using an existing regulated entity within a group, having certain services carried by an eligible regulated partner, acquiring an entity that holds the relevant authorizations or, where this is more consistent with the project as a whole, obtaining a financial authorization that then allows the Article 60 procedure to be used.

The question is therefore not necessarily whether to choose between a “CASP authorization” and an “Article 60 notification” once the project has been built. The existence of this procedure can be factored in from the outset when choosing the regulatory structure and the entity called upon to carry the crypto activities.

For certain players, in particular those whose model sits at the intersection of traditional financial services and crypto-assets, Article 60 thus opens up several possible routes to access the European market, the relevance of which will depend on the intended scope of activities, the timeline and the overall regulatory strategy.

The information contained in this article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It does not purport to be exhaustive and must be assessed in the light of the circumstances specific to each situation, in particular the business model, the services envisaged and the applicable regulatory framework. It is recommended to seek appropriate legal advice before taking any decision based on the elements presented in this article.

Keywords: CIF, crypto-asset advice, MiCA, CASP, AMF DOC-2006-23

More and more clients are asking their adviser whether they should invest in crypto-assets. Until recently, a Financial Investment Adviser (Conseiller en investissements financiers – CIF) could, in certain cases, provide guidance in this area with relative flexibility. That is no longer the case.

On 27 July 2026, the French Financial Markets Authority (Autorité des marchés financiers – AMF) updated its position-recommendation DOC-2006-23 (the document setting out its answers to recurring questions on the CIF regime) to clarify the scope of crypto-asset advice.

This update comes as the MiCA Regulation, which harmonizes the regulation of crypto-assets at the European level, is now fully applicable, and as the transitional period available to former Digital Asset Service Providers (DASP) ended on 1 July 2026.

From now on, as soon as a CIF crosses the line into personalized crypto-asset advice, it must hold authorization as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP). The question of exactly where that line falls is precisely what the AMF’s new guidance addresses.

A CIF status that does not cover crypto-assets

CIF status, governed by Articles L. 541-1 et seq. of the French Monetary and Financial Code (Code monétaire et financier – CMF), authorizes its holder to provide an investment advisory service. This service consists of giving a client a personalized recommendation (that is, advice presented as suited to the client’s situation) concerning one or more transactions relating to financial instruments (Article D. 321-1, 5° of the same Code).

The concept of a financial instrument is decisive here: it covers, in particular, shares, bonds and units in collective investment undertakings (OPC), but not crypto-assets. The AMF expressly confirms this in its new question-and-answer 2.5 of DOC-2006-23: a CIF’s advisory service covers neither crypto-assets nor services relating to them.

In practice, however, this limit was more a matter of principle than of actual practice, since DASP status offered another route. The DASP regime (Digital Asset Service Provider, corresponding to the former French PSAN status) was the French framework that regulated these players before MiCA, at a time when the term used was “digital assets” rather than “crypto-assets.” In its 2022 guidance, the AMF distinguished between two situations:

• where the CIF was itself approved as a DASP for advising subscribers of digital assets, it carried out that activity under the rules specific to that service;

• otherwise, that advice fell under the “other wealth management advisory activities” that a CIF may carry out, and was then subject only to the organizational and conduct-of-business rules of the CIF regime.

In both cases, the CIF could, in practice, advise its clients on digital assets.

This arrangement, however, rested on a temporary regime. DASPs registered or authorized in France before 30 December 2024, or providing advisory services to subscribers of digital assets before that date, could continue their activity until a MiCA authorization was granted or refused, and at the latest until 1 July 2026.

That deadline having now passed, the benchmarks set in 2022 are obsolete.

Crypto-asset advice now falls solely under the CASP regime established by MiCA. In other words, what was permitted yesterday under DASP status or under wealth management activities is no longer permitted today on that basis alone.

A broader scope of advice under MiCA

The difficulty lies not only in the authorization requirement: it also lies in MiCA’s very definition of advice, which is broader than it first appears.

Under Article 3(1)(24) of the MiCA Regulation, the provision of crypto-asset advice means offering, giving, or agreeing to give personalized recommendations to a client, whether at the client’s request or on the CASP’s own initiative, concerning one or more transactions relating to crypto-assets or the use of crypto-asset services.

This definition goes beyond investment advice as defined under MiFID II, which is limited to transactions in financial instruments: it also covers advice on the use of crypto-asset services, such as custody or portfolio management. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) confirmed this in its question-and-answer of 18 June 2026 (ESMA_QA_2882): a mere introductory service that recommends a service or a CASP without targeting a specific transaction may already constitute advice, provided the recommendation is personalized, is not addressed exclusively to the public, and is directed at an investor or the investor’s representative. The only exception is a simple reference to a CASP that is accessible in the same way to all potential investors.

In this context, the AMF warns of a risk specific to CIFs that direct their clients toward a CASP. The very fact of being a CIF may lead the client to believe that this referral stems from a personalized recommendation based on a review of the client’s situation, particularly where the adviser has already gathered information about the client’s assets in connection with an investment advisory service. The risk is then one of reclassification as crypto-asset advice, an activity for which the CIF is not authorized.

Clarification the profession had been waiting for

The entry into application of MiCA and the obsolescence of the 2022 benchmarks left CIFs without up-to-date guidance, at a time when the scope of crypto-asset advice, broader than that of investment advice, creates a risk of reclassification in the event of poorly controlled communications.

By adding a new question-and-answer to DOC-2006-23, which relays ESMA’s position and illustrates it with non-exhaustive examples, the AMF addresses this need for legal certainty and identifies certain situations in which CASP authorization is, or is not, required.

What the AMF’s position actually changes

To draw this line, the AMF reasons on the basis of a simple distinction between two categories of communications.

General communications fall outside the scope of crypto-asset advice. This is the case for educational information, marketing communications addressed to an undifferentiated public, or directing a client to the AMF’s published whitelist of authorized CASPs. Their common feature is that they do not target any particular person.

Individual communications, addressed to a specific client, call for greater caution. They remain permitted, but subject to two conditions: no personalized recommendation may be made, and the CIF must inform the client that it is not authorized to recommend crypto-assets, while referring the client to the AMF’s whitelist. Subject to this reservation, the following are notably permitted:

• simply informing a prospect, whether for payment or free of charge, of the existence of a CASP, before any wealth review or collection of information on the prospect’s personal situation;
• simply informing a client, whether for payment or free of charge, of the existence of a CASP belonging to the same group as the CIF, provided the client is duly and clearly informed of the nature of that relationship;
• a diversified asset allocation that may include crypto-assets, without any recommendation concerning a specific crypto-asset or a specific service;
• recommendations relating directly to financial instruments, even where those instruments are backed by crypto-assets (AIFs exposed to crypto-assets, index-linked debt securities), which then fall under investment advice covered by CIF status.

The options available to CIFs

To go beyond these regulated communications and deliver an actual personalized recommendation on crypto-assets or crypto-asset services, only one option remains: obtaining a CASP authorization.

Unlike investment services providers (Prestataire de services d’investissement – PSI), CIFs cannot obtain this through simple notification; they must file an authorization application and would be well advised to approach the AMF beforehand.

The requirement is, however, calibrated: the AMF specifies that authorization limited to the advisory service alone carries proportionate requirements, substantially less extensive than those attached to an application also covering, for example, the custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients.

Conclusion

The AMF’s position does not change the applicable law: it clarifies its implementation, now that the transitional period has ended. The point requiring vigilance is clear: absent CASP authorization, only a general communication, or an individual communication accompanied by the required clarifications, protects the CIF from reclassification. The dividing line between permitted communication and advice subject to authorization nonetheless remains a fine one and must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

CIFs whose activity is moving toward recurring support on crypto-assets therefore have an interest in assessing, as of now, the merits of obtaining CASP authorization limited to the advisory service, the formalities for which remain proportionate.