Afrigather Yellow Card, a pan-African stablecoin infrastructure firm that raised $33 million in October, has secured a Crypto Asset Service Supplier (CASP) licence in South Africa, a big step in its regional growth. This comes as South Africa continues to loosen up its regulatory stance on cryptocurrency in 2024, with over 138 corporations now licensed to function inside the nation’s regulated crypto ecosystem.
“Yellow Card South Africa is now an authorised monetary providers supplier (FSP) in South Africa. The scope of the authorisation encompasses crypto belongings, however it may be simply expanded to incorporate varied different monetary belongings, together with shares and tokenised securities,” the corporate instructed TechCabal.
Yellow Card, which entered South Africa in 2020, operates in 20 African international locations, permitting customers to make use of stablecoins to ship cash throughout these international locations. The startup claims to have facilitated over $3 billion in transactions since its inception in 2016.
“We glance forwardto constructing on our licence stack in South Africa and exploring how that can allow additional alternatives, not solely in South Africa and the SADC area, however throughout the continent,” the corporate stated.
South African regulators started licensing suppliers of advisory providers, exchanges, fee gateways, and wallets to carry oversight to the nation’s rising crypto trade because the trade processed $26 billion in transactions between June 2023 and June 2024.
This regulatory framework has enabled the South African authorities to tax crypto returns and scale back dangers associated to cash laundering and terrorist financing.
Nevertheless, the FSCA’s authority is restricted to licensing and overseeing Crypto Asset Service Suppliers (CASPs) for monetary providers involving crypto belongings and doesn’t equate to recognising crypto belongings as authorized tender or as “cryptocurrency.” The South African Reserve Financial institution additionally doesn’t at the moment acknowledge crypto belongings as foreign money.
The earliest step in liberalising South Africa’s crypto regulatory panorama got here in November 2018 when the South African Reserve Financial institution (SARB), in collaboration with the Monetary Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), South African Income Companies (SARS), and the Monetary Intelligence Centre (FIC), established the Crypto Belongings Regulatory Working Group.
In October 2022, the FSCA declared crypto belongings as monetary merchandise, bringing them underneath its regulatory jurisdiction. This transfer paved the way in which for the FSCA to open functions for licenses in June 2023 and started the welcoming of crypto in South Africa.
Yellow Card additionally confirmed that it started talks with Nigeria’s Securities and Trade Fee for a crypto licence underneath the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP).
“We submitted our ARIP software to the SEC a number of months in the past and are awaiting the SEC’s approval in precept,” it stated.
Editor’s be aware: This text has been up to date with Yellow Card’s assertion.
