South Africa’s FSCA licensed 248 crypto firms in 2024

The South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has, till date, issued a total of 248 licenses to virtual assets service providers (VASPs) in the country.

Pan-African exchange, Yellow Card, announced last November that it had also made it into the FSCA’s good books, having been granted a license in the regulator’s latest round of approvals. 

Dive deeper 

• In a recent update, the FSCA said it had received 420 licensing applications and declined nine since it called for cryptocurrency companies in the country to apply for regulatory approval in 2023.  
• Typically, the FSCA-issued licenses come in two categories indicating the scope of crypto-related activities that the bearer of the license is permitted to engage in. 
• Its Category I license allows firms to offer advisory and intermediary exchange services while its Category II covers investment management activities. 
• Notable exchanges such as VALR and Luno as well as crypto on-ramp and off-ramp service provider, Kotani Pay are some of the companies that have secured operational licenses. 
• Two months ago, the pan-African exchange, Yellow Card, announced that it had also received an FSCA-issued license in South Africa. 
• Gillian Darko, the exchange’s chief of staff, told Mariblock in an interview that Yellow Card secured approval as a financial service provider. This authorization enables Yellow Card to expand beyond crypto services, offering additional financial assets like stocks and tokenized securities.
• At the onset, the FSCA’s licensing powers limited it to authorize and supervise VASPs for crypto-related activities only. 
• It is unclear if the regulatory body has now expanded this scope to include other non-crypto financial assets. 

What was said 

• Darko, when asked what the FSCA license permits the firm to do, told Mariblock: 

“It’s not just crypto, but it's also financial assets, stocks and tokenized securities. That’s what the license encompasses at the moment.” 

Zoom out 

• South Africa became one of the first African countries to grant crypto a legal status when it added crypto companies to a list of accountable institutions in 2022. 
• In 2023, the FSCA asked crypto companies to apply for a license before the end of the year and declared companies that continued to operate outside its purview illegal. 
• Other African countries have been more measured and slower in regulating virtual assets. While some countries have adopted a wait-and-see approach, others have outrightly banned cryptocurrencies. 
• Last year, despite a nationwide crackdown on peer-to-peer crypto asset trading, the Nigerian SEC granted provisional licenses to two crypto companies — Busha and Quidax. 
• The licenses were issued under the SEC’s regulatory sandbox program, the accelerated regulatory incubation program (ARIP).