Austria’s Regulator Slaps New Business Ban on KuCoin EU
Austria’s financial regulator has prohibited KuCoin EU Exchange from conducting new business, citing breaches of internal organizational requirements around Anti-Money Laundering (AML), counter-terrorist financing (CTF) and the observance of financial sanctions.
The Thursday decision by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) means KuCoin’s Vienna-based entity cannot onboard new customers or conclude new contracts or products within existing relationships until key compliance functions are “appropriately filled.”
Sabina Liu, managing director at KuCoin EU, told Cointelegraph that two compliance professionals holding designated AML and sanctions oversight functions in Austria had “recently departed,” and that such mobility was common in “any regulated industry.”
She said that KuCoin had already begun recruiting “before the notice was issued,” and had “voluntarily paused new user onboarding and certain trading activities.”
Liu added that the matter remained “contained and limited in scope,” and that the exchange did not expect any “long-term structural impact on [its] European strategy.”
KuCoin’s “compliance-first” Vienna hub
The move comes just months after Austria granted KuCoin EU a Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) licence, allowing the Seychelles‑headquartered exchange to passport crypto asset services across the European Union and European Economic Area.
KuCoin has positioned Vienna as its European hub, appointing the former London Stock Exchange Group executive Liu as managing director in January to lead its MiCA-era expansion and pitching the bloc as a “regulatory-first” growth opportunity.
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Liu told Cointelegraph that KuCoin remained “committed to operating strictly within the applicable supervisory framework,” and ensuring compliance with Austrian and EEA regulatory standards.
“Compliance is a long-term commitment,” she said, adding that “temporary structural gaps” were being addressed through established remediation mechanisms.
The age of MiCA compliance
The FMA’s intervention shows how quickly MiCA-approved firms can face supervisory pushback if their governance or staffing diverge from approved plans, particularly around AML and sanctions oversight.
More broadly, European regulators have warned that crypto asset service providers (CASPs) that fail to secure MiCA authorization before transitional periods expire in July 2026 will have to wind down their EU operations, with supervisors pushing for orderly cessations rather than last‑minute scrambles.
In France, for example, the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) has told unprepared providers to plan for an orderly cessation of business by mid‑2026 if they cannot meet MiCA requirements in time.
In Spain, the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has warned that crypto firms that fail to obtain MiCA authorization by the end of the transition period will have to stop offering services in the country.
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