In fact, a “small but significant number of firms” that use the blockchain and works in the fintech industry could officially receive the FCA authorization.
The FCA is evaluating more than 150 startups and 40 of them will be approved for further study.
The number of blockchain startups is growing fast, but regulators are always concerned about illegal activity and bitcoin volatility.
The FCA director of strategy and competition, Chris Woolard explained:
“We do think blockchain has got some potentially interesting applications and we are talking to firms thinking about how to apply that to financial services and how it could benefit consumers or indeed make the business of compliance easier.— There may be areas where we might want to encourage it a bit.”
He explains the FCA will announce more details about this project by the end of 2016.
These startups will be the first to receive approval from the English FCA.
Blockchain investments
Companies such as Greenwich Associates,
EY,
Accenture, and PwC explained that they believe that
financial institutions will spend $1 billion USD for the distributed ledger technology during the current year.
Jeremy Millar of Ledger Partners said:
“Reports have claimed up to $100bn could be saved on the post-trade settlement process by using blockchain. Another estimate by Goldman Sachs said there could be $50bn of savings in the US repo market alone. The numbers are huge.”
The technology behind Bitcoin is growing its popularity within the fintech industry. More and more financial institutions and governments are developing and studying its applications.
This way, the English FCA could be the next authority to officially recognize the potential of the ledger.
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