On 27 June 2024, the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published joint guidelines on, first, the suitability assessment of the members of the management body of issuers of asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) and, secondly, the suitability assessment of shareholders and members with (in)direct qualifying holdings for issuers of ARTs and CASPs under Regulation 2023/1114/EU (MiCAR).
The first set of guidelines establishes common criteria to assess the knowledge, skills, experience, reputation, honesty and integrity of the management body’s members, and whether they can commit sufficient time to perform their duties to ensure these entities are soundly managed.
The second set of guidelines provides competent authorities (CAs) with a common methodology to assess the suitability of the shareholders and members with (in)direct qualifying holdings, with the aim to grant authorisation as issuers of ARTs or as CASPs and to carry out the prudential assessment of proposed acquisitions.
The guidelines will apply from 2 months after the date of publication of the guidelines in all EU official languages on the ESMA and EBA websites.
