Australian Senate committee backs crypto platform licensing bill

Australia is moving closer to a new licensing regime that would bring crypto exchanges and tokenization platforms into the Australian Financial Services Licence regime.

Australia’s Senate Economics Legislation Committee has backed a bill that would require crypto exchanges and tokenization platforms to comply with the country’s existing financial services regime, recommending that the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 be passed. 

The move on March 16 brings Australia a step closer to a bespoke licensing framework for “digital asset platforms” (DAPs) and “tokenised custody platforms” (TCPs), aimed at closing gaps in oversight of platforms that hold customer assets following the collapses of high‑profile digital asset businesses, such as FTX.

The bill, first introduced by Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino in November 2025, would treat DAPs and TCPs as financial products under the Corporations Act and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Act, pushing most centralized exchanges and tokenized custody businesses that hold client assets into the Australian Financial Services Licence regime.

Related: Ripple targets April for Australian financial license via acquisition

Licensed platforms must meet ASIC-set custody and settlement standards, comply with tailored disclosure rules for retail clients and operate under platform-specific conduct and governance requirements.

Smaller providers with annual transaction volumes under 10 million Australian dollars ($7 million), along with some public blockchain infrastructure providers, would be exempt.

Industry groups cited in the report, such as law firm Piper Alderman, warned that the broad “digital token” and “factual control” tests could inadvertently include wallet software and infrastructure providers in non-unilateral-control setups, including common multi‑party computation (MPC) configurations.

US blockchain firm Ripple Labs backed “control” as the “appropriate nexus” for the regulatory perimeter, but argued that the bill needed to better accommodate modern security architectures such as MPC wallets.

It warned that, on a strict reading of the “factual control” test, technology‑only providers holding a single key shard could be misclassified as regulated custodians, and urged lawmakers to clarify that an entity does not exercise factual control unless it can unilaterally transfer an asset without the client’s cooperation.

Related: Australia warns of AI, ‘finfluencers’ as Gen Z crypto ownership reaches 23%

The committee acknowledged these concerns, but sided with Treasury’s plan to refine the perimeter through future regulations rather than rewriting the core definitions.

In an email statement to Cointelegraph, Coinbase Australia director and APAC managing director John O’Loghlen welcomed the recommendation as “an important step for Australia’s standing in the global digital economy.” He argued that the country had the capital and talent to lead in digital assets, but still needed clear rules to unlock that potential.

O’Loghlen also warned that “the anti-competitive practice of debanking is rampant despite the government endorsing measures to address it back in 2022,” and urged Canberra to prioritize implementing the Council of Financial Regulators’ recommendations.

With the committee’s backing in hand, the bill now moves to the Senate for debate and a final vote at a later date.

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Source: CoinTelegraph