Australia Is About to Require Crypto Exchanges to Be Licensed Like Banks: The Senate Endorsed the Bill

Australia’s Senate Economics Legislation Committee has officially endorsed the Corporations Amendment Digital Assets Framework Bill 2025, a piece of legislation that would bring cryptocurrency exchanges and custody providers under the same licensing regime as traditional financial services firms.

What the Bill Actually Does

The framework targets intermediaries rather than the underlying technology. Exchanges, custodians, and platforms that hold client assets will be required to obtain an Australian Financial Services Licence from ASIC, the country’s securities regulator. The blockchain itself is not regulated. The businesses that sit between users and the blockchain are.

Two new categories of regulated financial products are created by the bill. Digital Asset Platforms cover exchanges and trading venues. Tokenised Custody Platforms cover firms that hold tokenised assets on behalf of clients. Both categories will face disclosure requirements, minimum asset protection standards, and transaction execution obligations comparable to what traditional financial institutions already meet.

The consumer protection framing is deliberate. The bill is structured to ensure that someone using a regulated crypto platform receives protections similar in standard to those provided by a bank or licensed broker. That alignment with existing financial services standards rather than a purpose-built crypto regime is the design choice that distinguishes Australia’s approach from more fragmented regulatory frameworks.

The Compliance Timeline

The bill passed its third reading in the House of Representatives on February 4, 2026, before being referred to the Senate committee that has now endorsed it. Full enactment is expected later in 2026. Firms currently operating without an AFSL will have a six-month transition period to comply once the bill becomes law.

Some requirements are arriving sooner. AUSTRAC registration requirements for digital asset firms begin as early as March 31, 2026, meaning the compliance clock has already started for parts of the framework regardless of where the full legislation sits in the parliamentary process.

The Penalties for Non-Compliance

The enforcement mechanism is serious. Businesses failing to meet the new standards face civil penalties of up to A$16.5 million or 10% of annual turnover, whichever is higher. That penalty structure places crypto exchanges on comparable footing with traditional financial institutions when it comes to regulatory consequences, removing the implicit assumption that crypto businesses operate in a lower-accountability environment.

Smaller platforms are partially exempted. Firms processing less than A$10 million in annual transactions or holding less than $5,000 per customer are not subject to the full licensing requirements. That threshold is designed to avoid crushing early-stage innovation while capturing the exchanges and custodians that handle meaningful client assets at scale.

Why the Timing Matters

The Australian bill’s progress arrives in the same week that South Korea was debating its own corporate digital asset trading guidelines, Hana Financial and Standard Chartered signed a stablecoin-focused MOU, and the U.S. Congress continued negotiating the CLARITY Act. The global regulatory picture is moving simultaneously across multiple jurisdictions, each finding its own approach to the same fundamental question of how to integrate digital asset businesses into existing financial oversight frameworks.

Australia’s approach is notable for its clarity of scope. By focusing on intermediaries rather than assets or technology, and by aligning standards with existing AFSL requirements rather than building a separate crypto-specific regime, the framework provides a relatively clean implementation path for businesses that already understand traditional financial services compliance.

Whether the bill passes its final Senate vote and becomes law later in 2026 will determine whether that clarity translates into practice.

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