What is a DASP registration?

Believe it or not, even in the crypto business companies have to play by the rules. LordToken is a french company and France has a very regulated financial market including the crypto niche. The market regulator in France is the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers), an independent public body. It is responsible for safeguarding investments in financial instruments and in all other savings and investment vehicles, ensuring that investors receive material information, and maintaining orderly financial markets. The law of May 22nd 2019 known as the PACTE law, established a status for Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) in France.

Registration with the AMF as a DASP is mandatory for any actor that provides at least one of the following digital asset services:

• Custody of digital assets on behalf of a client
• Buying or selling digital assets for fiat
• Exchanging digital assets for other digital assets
• Operation of a trading platform for digital assets

You already know us: at LordToken, we like to do things all the way! Since our platform offers a comprehensive suite of services, we provide ALL of the digital asset services in the list above. As we are definitively providing at least one of the listed services and we are established in France, we have to register with the AMF as a DASP.

What did it mean for us?

First, it meant a lot of work to make sure we aced our registration application. As you can imagine, the AMF is exceptionally scrutinous regarding the different documents they request, the forms we need to fill out, and the exchanges we have with them. To illustrate this complexity, let's note that only 37 companies registered so far, making the DASPs a very closed circle.

Once the registration application was received, the AMF set a few meetings concerning the presentation of LordToken and our AML (Anti Money Laundering) / CFT (Combating the Financing of Terrorism) system.

The AMF then proceeded by checking if we complied with a set of conditions, including the following:

• We have at least one executive manager
• Our human and technical resources are sufficient, and we have resilient IT systems
• The presence of an internal control system
• We offer a claims handling procedure through an organization to avoid conflict of interest,
• Procedures are established for the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism
• We communicate clear information to you, our valued users
• We comply with the specific requirements for the services we provide

In addition to those conditions, the AMF also checked the good repute and competence of LordToken’s managers and beneficial owners. Ultimately, they sought clearance from the ACPR (l’Autorité de contrôle prudential et de resolution).

Tl;dr what does it mean for you?

DASP registration exists to protect French users, so you can legitimately ask yourself how you can benefit from this process if you are not French. As we explained, LordToken was scrutinized by the AMF to make sure our organization has a good repute and is competent in operating an exchange, our services are on par with what we are advertising and they meet the minimum requirements, and we comply with AML / CFT rules. Since using our services means putting your trust in our hands, you should definitively be glad that LordToken is a DASP!