On the 15th of January, 2019, The Malta Financial Services Authority (the “MFSA”) published a circular notifying the public that the Financial Instrument Test has been updated and that this is the final version of same. Such test aims at helping issuers, VFA agents and licence holders, as defined in the Virtual Financial Assets Act, 2018, to determine if the DLT asset in question qualifies as a virtual financial asset, a virtual token, electronic money or a financial instrument.

Malta became the first jurisdiction to introduce legislation regulating Distributed Ledger Technology, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain in general by enacting three new acts in 2018, these being the Virtual Financial Assets Act, the Innovative Technology Arrangements and Services Act and the Malta Digital Innovation Authority Act. The introduction of said legislation led to a number of issuers and service providers from this sector to look at Malta as the Blockchain Island and operate within the DLT sphere in a regulated environment via Malta.

Fenlex DLT Services Ltd, a company within the Fenlex Group has recently filed its application with the MFSA to act as a VFA Agent under section 7 and 14 of the Virtual Financial Assets Act.

For further information, please contact us at fintech@fenlex.com.