The French National Assembly has voted to legislate stricter licensing rules for new cryptocurrency firms to harmonize local laws with proposed European Union (EU) standards. The vote was passed with 109 votes (60.5%) in favour to 71 (39.5%) against. With the French Senate having already passed the bill, it will now be passed to president Emmanuel Macron who has 15 days to either approve it or send it back to the legislature. If passed, the new law would oblige France-based cryptocurrency service providers to comply with stricter anti-money laundering rules, show that customer funds are segregated, adhere to new guidelines on reporting to regulators and provide more detailed risk and conflict of interest disclosures as a means to strengthen consumer protection. (Cointelegraph)

The French National Assembly passed a set of licensing rules for crypto firms operating in the country as part of a broader bill aimed at harmonizing French law with European Union standards.

Registration conditions for French crypto firms will be tightened as of January, 2024 under plans published Friday by a committee of lawmakers from both chambers of parliament, but not as much as initially sought by the Senate, the country's upper house.

Crypto industry advocates had been concerned about tougher rules in the wake of the FTX collapse, and as EU laws bed in.

Hervé Maurey, a member of the Senate’s influential finance commission, has proposed an amendment to legislation to eliminate a clause that would enable registered cryptocurrency companies to operate domestically without a full regulatory licence until 2026.  

As per a recent Financial Times report, France may reconsider its easy licensing regime for digital asset providers, following recent market failures such as FTX’s demise. The development would call into question France’s efforts to position itself as one of Europe’s most pro-crypto nations.

France and Luxembourg have used an experimental central bank digital currency (CBDC) to settle a bond worth 100 million euros ($104 million), the latest in a series of trials in tokenized financial markets.