Coinbase officially registered with OAM to operate in Italy

According to a new article on the company’s blog, Coinbase has obtained registration with the OAM registry to operate according to law in Italy and thus continue to provide crypto trading and custody services to Italian residents.

The company’s vice president of International and Business Development, Nana Murugesan, wrote the following in a post on the company’s blog:

“Today, we’re able to announce a key milestone … securing approval from Italian regulators to provide ongoing crypto services to its residents. The new requirement implemented by the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (OAM), mandated that all companies offering crypto trading, custody or other services, meet set criteria”.

Coinbase is working hard to comply with the laws of each of the 40 European countries in which it operates.

The blog also reads:

“We are in the process of strengthening our presence across Europe and have registrations or license applications in progress in several major markets in compliance with local regulations”.

Just a few weeks ago Coinbase announced that it was expanding in Europe by opening new locations in France, Spain, and the Netherlands.

The news had come as a surprise given that the company had revealed that it would be downsizing by laying off 18% of its staff, as many as 1100 people, mostly in the States. 

Coinbase is currently registered in England, Ireland, and Germany and recently decided to hire its first employee in Switzerland.

What is the OAM and its shortcomings

The decree of the Organismo degli Agenti e Mediatori creditizi (OAM), signed a few months ago by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), stipulates that in order to carry out various activities in the crypto sector in Italy, it is required to be registered in a register kept by the OAM and that companies must periodically transmit all the data of the transactions and the identification data of the users of the platform that carried them out. 

This data can be accessed at any time by the Guardia di Finanza or other law enforcement agencies to conduct their investigations.

However, the OAM has some shortcomings. For example, the decree does not specify exactly who is required to register, as the provision is not sufficiently clear and does not just identify exchanges.

In addition, the registry has the sole function – by the OAM’s own admission – of monitoring the conduct of business in terms of anti-money laundering and fiscal control, but does not verify in any way the possession of particular eligibility requirements to be enrolled in the registry itself (scam projects, Ponzi scheme, etc…).

Indeed, in order to be enrolled in the register, the regulations do not include any other requirement than having a registered office or residence in Italy.

Members of the OAM register

Recently, many Italian companies have successfully enrolled in this register. For example, Binance has also opened an office in Italy, specifically in Lecce, to comply with regulatory requirements.

Binance Italy srl, in fact, opened an office in Salento in May, and more specifically in Via Generale Francesco Poli, although the company is currently still reported to be inactive.

Another 15 or so companies join the list of members, including exchange Young Platform, Bitcoin Chainblock ATM, DeFi platform Anubi Digital and Bitcoin Veneto Center.