The Malta Financial Services Authority has received Letters of Intent from 34 prospective virtual financial assets (VFA) service providers, 21 of which pertain to crypto-asset exchanges.

These, the authority said, were operating under the transitory provisions set out in the Virtual Financial Assets Act.  After the expiry of this transitionary period, which ended on Thursday, entities wishing to continue their operations in or from Malta were required to apply for authorisation with the MFSA. 

The letters are the first step of the authorisation process for such applicants to obtain a VFA services licence.  The authority said it shall shortly be contacting the applicants to set up a preliminary meeting. Once this is held, applicants will have 60 days to submit a full application pack to the authority.

The MFSA also said that, to date, it has received 30 applications for registration of VFA agents, 18 of whom have been registered.

The list of registered VFA Agents is available on the authority’s website. Once the first VFA service providers are authorised, a full list will also be published on the authority’s website.