Key Highlights
- Coinbase was reportedly notified last week that its UK Finance membership would be terminated.
- The decision reportedly followed a review of UK Finance’s membership criteria.
- Coinbase can appeal the decision, according to Bloomberg.
Coinbase has reportedly lost its membership of UK Finance, a financial-services trade group representing more than 300 firms across banking, payments and financial markets.
According to a Bloomberg report published on September 23, UK Finance’s board informed Coinbase last week that its membership would be terminated following a review of the organization’s membership criteria. The exchange can appeal the decision, the report said.
UK Finance’s public member directory still lists Coinbase at the time of writing, meaning the reported change has not yet appeared in its publicly available records.
Membership review behind decision
People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the review found cryptocurrency exchanges did not meet the requirements under UK Finance’s current membership framework.
UK Finance has separate membership categories for financial-services firms and companies that provide services to the sector. The organization represents firms involved in areas including banking, payments and financial markets.
The reported decision concerns Coinbase’s membership of the trade group and is separate from the exchange’s regulatory authorization in the UK.
Coinbase’s UK regulatory status unchanged
The reported membership decision does not affect Coinbase’s ability to operate under its existing UK regulatory arrangements.
According to Coinbase’s UK user agreement, Coinbase Payments is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for specified cryptoasset activities and is also authorized as a MiFID investment firm.
The FCA separately administers the UK’s registration regime for cryptoasset businesses. As a result, losing membership of a trade organization would not by itself change Coinbase’s regulatory permissions.
UK Finance continues crypto policy work
The reported membership decision comes as UK Finance continues to participate in discussions around the country’s digital-asset rules.
On June 30, the organization submitted responses to consultations by the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority concerning stablecoin regulation.
UK Finance has also published policy work covering securities tokenization and the UK’s broader cryptoasset framework.
The reported Coinbase decision could affect the exchange’s participation in the trade group’s industry discussions, but it does not itself change UK crypto regulation.
Coinbase has clashed with traditional finance groups over policy
Coinbase has previously criticized positions taken by parts of the traditional financial sector on digital-asset legislation.
On August 6, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong questioned concerns raised by community banks over the CLARITY Act as Senate leaders delayed a procedural vote on the legislation.
Those disagreements concerned proposed crypto regulation and do not establish a connection to Coinbase’s reported UK Finance membership termination.
Similarly, an August 13 report covered a crypto industry challenge to the Federal Reserve’s proposed rules concerning access to payment infrastructure. That dispute involved U.S. banking policy and was separate from UK Finance’s membership decision.
Coinbase can appeal the decision
Bloomberg reported that Coinbase has the option to appeal the membership decision.
For now, the outcome of any appeal and whether UK Finance updates its public member directory remain the next developments to watch.
The reported change is a trade-group membership matter rather than a regulatory action against Coinbase, and the exchange’s UK authorization remains separate from its relationship with UK Finance.
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