FMA to enforce ESMA's three-month deadline on CASP services tied to non-MiCAR stablecoins
Audio and video are produced for every briefing. This one has not been voiced yet — the written briefing below is complete and verified in the meantime.
ESMA issued an Opinion on 8 October 2026 telling MiCAR-authorised CASPs to stop offering services linked to stablecoins that do not comply with MiCAR. Austria's FMA has confirmed it will apply those expectations in supervision and police a remediation deadline. This segment covers who is bound, what services are caught, and the clock that is now running.
- ESMA published its Opinion on non-MiCAR-compliant ARTs and EMTs on 8 October 2026; the FMA will apply it in supervision.
- MiCAR-authorised CASPs should not provide any covered service linked to non-compliant stablecoins to EU clients, standalone or combined.
- Existing positions must be remediated as quickly as possible, no later than three months from the Opinion's publication date.
Executive summary — the whole item, if you read nothing else
The FMA has announced it will give supervisory effect to an ESMA Opinion of 8 October 2026 on crypto-asset services related to non-MiCAR-compliant asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs). ESMA's expectation is that CASPs authorised under MiCAR should not provide any covered crypto-asset service connected to such stablecoins to EU clients, whether standalone or bundled, and should neither maintain nor establish client access. CASPs must deploy technical, contractual and organisational measures to block availability in the EU. The FMA will assess authorised CASPs for such positions and require remediation as quickly as possible, and no later than three months from the Opinion's publication date.
Detailed analysis
What happened — reported fact
The Financial Market Authority Austria (FMA) said on 9 October 2026 that it will take account of an Opinion published the previous day by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) concerning services related to non-MiCAR-compliant stablecoins. The FMA stated the ESMA expectations will be duly considered in its supervisory activities.
The ESMA Opinion, dated 8 October 2026, sets out supervisory expectations for services related to asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs) that do not comply with Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCAR). According to the FMA, ESMA states that Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASPs) authorised under MiCAR should not provide crypto-asset services related to non-MiCAR-compliant stablecoins to clients in the European Union.
The FMA said this expectation applies to all crypto-asset services covered by MiCAR and applies irrespective of whether the services are provided on a standalone basis or in combination with other services. CASPs should neither maintain nor establish new access for clients in the European Union to non-MiCAR-compliant ARTs or EMTs, nor facilitate such access through their services. They should implement appropriate technical, contractual and organisational measures to prevent the availability of such tokens in the European Union.
On further steps, the FMA said it will assess, as part of its supervisory activities, whether authorised CASPs provide crypto-asset services related to non-MiCAR-compliant ARTs or EMTs, or maintain or facilitate their availability to EU clients through their services. Where existing positions are identified, they will be required to be remediated as quickly as possible. In line with the ESMA Opinion, such remediation must be completed no later than three months from the Opinion's publication date.
The FMA directed readers to ESMA's Opinion on services related to "unauthorised stablecoins" for further information.
Our view — interpretation, not fact
The operative word in this notice is "facilitate": ESMA is not merely barring CASPs from trading unauthorised stablecoins, it is making them responsible for client access through any part of their service, standalone or bundled. That is a design obligation, not a listing decision. The requirement to deploy technical, contractual and organisational measures means a CASP that lets a client hold a non-compliant EMT in a wallet, use it as a settlement leg, or route to it via a connected venue is within scope, even where the CASP itself never promotes the token. The three-month remediation window is the pressure point. Unwinding existing positions is harder than delisting: it means forced conversions, client notifications and potential crystallisation of balances for EU holders, and it will fall unevenly on firms whose order books carry the largest non-compliant stablecoins. Because the FMA has said it will act in line with the Opinion rather than set its own path, firms operating across EU member states should expect broadly parallel supervisory timelines from other national competent authorities, limiting any arbitrage between jurisdictions. The real test is whether "as quickly as possible" is read as a softer standard than the three-month backstop, or as an earlier one.
The other side
ESMA's rationale is straightforward: MiCAR's authorisation regime is meaningless if authorised intermediaries can still channel EU clients into tokens that never met its reserve, disclosure and redemption requirements. A soft perimeter would reward the very issuers the regulation was built to exclude, and a fixed remediation deadline gives firms certainty rather than open-ended exposure.
What to do
Map every service line, wallet function and venue connection that could give EU clients access to non-compliant ARTs or EMTs, and build a remediation plan against the three-month deadline now; watch for parallel notices from other national competent authorities.
Source documents
https://www.fma.gv.at/en/fma-informs-about-esma-supervisory-expectations-regarding-services-related-to-non-micar-compliant-stablecoins/Read by Regulus 13 Oct 2026 at 02:04 UTC
13 factual claims checked against this document · 0 unsupported
Cited and linked; extract quoted under fair dealing