ESMA Adds 14 Firms to MiCA Register, Ripple Among Newcomers – NFT Plazas
The European Securities and Markets Authority has expanded its Markets in Crypto-Assets register with 14 additional companies, pushing the total number of licensed crypto-asset service providers in the European Union to 294. Ripple Payments Europe SA, the payments arm of blockchain company Ripple, is among the newest entrants, gaining authorization to offer regulated crypto services across the bloc.
The July 16 update marks ESMA’s latest interim revision to the central MiCA register since the regulation’s 18-month transitional period closed on July 1. With Ripple Payments Europe now listed, the firm can extend regulated crypto asset services to financial institutions and businesses in 29 EU member states, building on the licensing groundwork the company laid earlier this summer.
Ripple’s inclusion follows its full Crypto Asset Service Provider authorization from Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, granted in early July after a preliminary green light in June. That CASP license, paired with an existing Electronic Money Institution authorization Ripple already holds in Luxembourg, gives the company a combined regulatory foundation to support crypto asset and stablecoin payment services throughout the European Economic Area. Ripple has said the setup lets banks, fintechs, and corporate clients rely on a single integration to move funds, exchange assets, and settle payments, spanning products that may draw on XRP, the XRP Ledger, or the RLUSD stablecoin depending on the client and service involved.
Ripple Payments Joins MiCA With 14 Firms
Banks join the crypto licensing queue
Ripple was not alone in the latest batch. ESMA’s update also added Portugal’s Bison Bank, Croatia’s state-owned Hrvatska poštanska banka, and Liechtenstein’s Kaiser Partner Privatbank to the register. Their appearance reinforces a trend regulators have flagged repeatedly since MiCA’s transition window closed: established banks, not just crypto-native firms, are pursuing authorization to offer digital asset services under the bloc’s harmonized framework.
Payments processor BitPay secured its own MiCA authorization separately, receiving a Crypto Asset Service Provider license from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets. The license lets BitPay offer crypto and stablecoin payment services across eligible EU markets, using MiCA’s passporting mechanism to operate without seeking approval country by country.
Taken together, the additions bring ESMA’s interim MiCA register to 294 authorized providers, though the pace of new licensing has slowed markedly since the July 1 cutoff. ESMA’s prior large update, published July 3, added 37 firms in a single batch; the July 16 revision added only 14, suggesting the initial post-deadline surge of approvals is giving way to a steadier, slower drip of new authorizations as national regulators work through remaining applications.
Under MiCA, any company offering covered crypto asset services within the EU must secure authorization from a national competent authority. Once a firm receives that approval, it can passport its services into other participating markets without applying separately in each jurisdiction, a structure designed to let compliant providers scale across the bloc efficiently while keeping oversight anchored at the national level.
Ripple’s European footprint now extends beyond MiCA as well. The company holds an Electronic Money Institution license and cryptoasset registration from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, secured earlier this year, rounding out a broader push into regulated markets across the region. Ripple has said its total portfolio of regulatory licenses worldwide now exceeds 75.
Ripple has also received regulatory approval from the UK Financial Conduct Authority
Compliance pressure mounts as deadline passes
The newest authorizations arrive as European regulators keep a close watch on customer movement triggered by MiCA’s transition deadline. Firms that failed to secure authorization by the applicable cutoff are required to wind down regulated crypto services in EU markets, absent alternative national arrangements, pushing their customers to migrate toward licensed platforms.
That migration has drawn direct attention from the EU’s Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism. AMLA chair Bruna Szego, briefing the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, warned that firms exiting the market could face a sharp rise in withdrawal requests as customers rush to move assets before services shut down. She cautioned that licensed providers absorbing those departing customers may struggle to process a large volume of new accounts while still maintaining rigorous anti-money laundering checks.
Szego urged departing firms to prepare operationally for a spike in customer activity and called on newly authorized providers to hold the line on compliance standards even as onboarding volumes increase. AMLA has said it plans to publish a fuller report on money-laundering risk in the crypto sector before year’s end and is expanding its blockchain analytics capabilities to strengthen supervision of authorized providers going forward.
For Ripple and the other newly listed firms, the AMLA warning underscores that regulatory authorization is only the starting point. ESMA’s register confirms these companies can now legally serve customers across MiCA’s participating markets, but Szego’s comments make clear that regulators expect authorized providers to manage the resulting influx of business without loosening identity verification, transaction monitoring, or the broader anti-money laundering controls that MiCA was designed to enforce.
