Binu Paul Appointed as Head of Digital Assets in the U.K's FCA

Binu Paul has been named the new head of digital assets at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the primary financial regulator in the United Kingdom.

The news was first announced after Paul made a post on Linkedin that he has officially resigned from the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) in New Zealand, as a fintech specialist lead.

Paul takes over from Victoria McLoughlin, who had been overseeing digital assets in an acting capacity since April according to a post she made via LinkedIn.

“I have had the good fortune to hold positions that allowed me to positively impact New Zealand's financial services and technology industries, both as an employee and an entrepreneur. My accomplishments to date include founding SavvyKiwi for KiwiSavers, leading New Zealand's top investment research firm through its successful exit, and bringing together the fintech community with Finnotec”, says Paul. 

While Paul has been receiving congratulatory messages via his Linkedin post, some of his connections say he will be greatly missed in New Zealand’s fintech community. 

“A big loss for New Zealand, but sounds like an amazing ground of opportunity in an exciting space,” says a commenter.

Fighting the Activities of Money Laundering 

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the UK’s financial regulator that oversees the actions of 59,000 financial institutions. 

The FCA, which is independent of the government, guarantees that businesses act ethically while fostering competition and openness for the benefit of customers. The FCA continues to monitor major risk factors in the financial markets and has a variety of supervisory and enforcement measures at its disposal to spot, discourage, and stop improper behaviour.

Beginning in 2020, the FCA took over as the United Kingdom's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing body. 

The regulator thus demanded that businesses engaging in certain crypto asset operations across the country register with it. To this end, Revolut was offered registration to trading services in the UK, which makes it a total of 38 companies now on the list to operate crypto asset businesses in the nation.