What Is a Swiss SRO?
How to Choose the Right One for Your Crypto Company? What Is Swiss SRO Membership? In Switzerland, if your business provides financial intermediary services — such as crypto exchange, OTC trading, payment processing, or non-custodial wallet infrastructure — you can operate legally under a Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) recognised by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority […]
CASP License for Staking and Yield Services
Many crypto founders enter the EU market thinking they need to find out whether a “staking license” exists. That is usually the wrong starting point. Under MiCA, the real issue is not the product label but the legal nature of the service. The regime applies to crypto-asset service providers from 30 December 2024, while transitional […]
Why “Revenue Growth” Isn’t a Strategy and How to Decompose It Into Actions
“Revenue growth” is a goal. It’s a scoreboard. It’s the thing investors want to hear and teams love to chant because it feels productive. It is not a strategy. A strategy is a set of choices about where you will play, how you will win, and what you will not do. Strategy has constraints, trade-offs, […]
Why Banks Prefer EU Crypto Licenses Over Off-Shore
In crypto, a license is not just a permission slip. It is a trust signal. And banks, being banks, are allergic to mystery. That is why many banking partners are more comfortable with an EU crypto license than with an off-shore crypto structure. It is not because every EU-licensed firm is automatically “safe,” and it […]
AML Audit for Crypto Companies: Full Checklist
For a crypto company, an AML audit is the point where theory collides with evidence. Policies may look polished. Procedures may sound convincing. A risk matrix may sit in a folder with all the right words. But an AML audit for crypto companies asks a much less poetic question: does any of this actually work […]
How to Tell Your Strategy Is Outdated: 7 Symptoms
Strategies don’t become outdated because someone “thought wrong.” They become outdated because markets change, channels burn out, competitors adapt, and internal shortcuts accumulate until your original plan stops matching reality. The problem is most teams notice this only as a vibe: “something feels off.” Here are 7 concrete symptoms that usually mean the strategy is […]
Operational Risk: What It Is and Why It Is Ignored Until the First Incident
Most companies think about risk in the dramatic categories first: loss of revenue, legal trouble, market decline, a major competitor, a broken fundraising cycle. Operational risk is less theatrical, which is exactly why it is so dangerous. It sits inside everyday work: how people follow processes, how systems fail, how vendors behave, how controls are […]
Building an EMI Business Plan That Regulators Take Seriously
Most EMI founders think about the business plan the way investors do. The regulator does not. An investor deck is allowed to be optimistic. A licensing file is not. An investor wants upside. A supervisor wants evidence that the institution can survive stress, stay inside its permissions, fund its controls, and operate without improvisation. That […]
Can a Startup Get an EMI License or Is It Only for Large Fintechs?
The short answer is yes: a startup can get an EMI license. In EU law and in the EBA’s authorization framework, the test is not whether the applicant is already a famous fintech or a large group. The test is whether the applicant can prove that it is properly capitalized, governable, controllable, and ready to […]
AML Compliance for EMI License Applicants
For many EMI founders, AML enters the conversation too late. First comes the commercial model. Then the product. Then the banking discussion. Then the licence pack starts taking shape, and suddenly everyone remembers that the application also needs an AML framework. That sequence is one of the fastest ways to make an EMI file look […]
Governance Structure for an EMI
When founders prepare an EMI licence application, they often focus first on capital, safeguarding, AML documents, and the business plan. All of those matter. But one area regularly decides whether an application looks credible or fragile: the governance structure for an EMI. Regulators do not look at governance as a corporate formality. They look at […]
Safeguarding Requirements for EMI Companies Explained
If you are building or acquiring an electronic money institution, safeguarding is one of the first areas regulators, banking partners, auditors, and serious counterparties will examine. It is not a side topic. It is one of the core prudential disciplines that separates a credible EMI from a weakly structured payments business. In simple terms, safeguarding […]