MiCA's Mid-Summer Lull: ESMA Tacks on 14, Slows to a Cruiser's Pace 🏦

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) added 14 crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) register on July 16, bringing the total number of licensed CASPs to 294. The second post-deadline update reflects a slower licensing tempo than ESMA's July 3 expansion, which added 37 CASPs in the first major batch after MiCA's transitional period ended.

Ripple Payments Europe SA, the European payments arm of blockchain company Ripple, headlined the new entries and can now offer its crypto services across 29 EU countries. Traditional lenders made up a notable share of the new cohort: Portugal-based Bison Bank, Croatia's state-owned Hrvatska poštanska banka (HPB), Liechtenstein's Kaiser Partner Privatbank, Germany's Volksbank Schwarzwald-Donau-Neckar and Raiffeisenbank Auerbach-Freihung all received CASP authorization.

ESMA reported no changes to its separate registers for electronic money tokens (EMTs) and asset-referenced tokens (ARTs), with the EMT register holding at 21 unique issuers and the ART register remaining empty of approved entries. The CASP roster now spans dozens of established financial institutions, including Spain's BBVA and CaixaBank, Germany's Commerzbank, France's CACEIS Bank and Standard Chartered Luxembourg.

The regulator simultaneously added two entities to its non-compliant list following actions by Italy's Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), namely Reversal Investment Group and Kortex, which raised the total entries on that list to 164, a tally that includes crypto exchange MEXC.