FMA Clarifies Its Regulatory Approach Towards Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (Finanzmarktaufsicht – FMA) has updated its FinTech-Navigator to include specific information on how initial coin offerings (ICOs) are to be treated under Austrian law.

Whereas the FMA has generally confirmed that ICOs are unregulated under Austrian law, the Fin-Tech Navigator now includes a broad overview of potential regulatory and capital markets requirements that may apply in connection with an ICO.

Most of the potential requirements come as no surprise and are largely in line with the opinions expressed in Austrian legal writing, including our own Legal Insight of 30 September 2017.

The following article summarises the key findings from the FinTech-Navigator and contains selected remarks on the FMA's view.