AUSTRIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Oliver Völkel, Jara Erhard and Bryan Hollmann, CERHA HEMPEL
that a CASP’s clients are actually owners of the cryp- to-assets held for them by the CASP. For details on ownership over crypto-assets under Austrian law, see 1.2.1 Property Considerations . Segregation Requirement Under MiCA MiCA requires CASPs to implement procedures that guarantee the segregation of client assets from their own assets. The segregation must be maintained at all times, ensuring that, in the case of insolvency, the cli- ent assets are protected and can be promptly returned to the rightful owners without being subject to the claims of general creditors. Furthermore, CASPs are required to have strong internal control mechanisms to monitor this segregation of assets. This includes regular audits and reconciliations to ensure compli- ance with the segregation requirement. Lastly, CASPs must also provide clear and regular reporting to clients about the status and location of their assets. 1.2.6 Industry and Trade Bodies Please refer to 1.1.5 Industry and Trade Bodies . 2. Regulation 2.1 Regulators and International Alignment Regulatory Bodies In Austria, several regulatory bodies are relevant to businesses or individuals using blockchain technol- ogy. Each of these bodies has its own scope of juris- diction and regulatory approach to blockchain and digital asset firms. • FMA – The FMA is the primary regulator for finan- cial markets in Austria. It oversees banks, insur- ance companies, pension funds, securities firms and CASPs. With the Austrian MiCA Implementa- tion Act (MiCA-VVG), the FMA was designated as the competent authority concerning offerors, issuers or crypto-asset service providers. In par- ticular, the FMA is authorised to take administrative measures and impose administrative penalties. The FMA’s jurisdiction also includes enforcing compli- ance with AML regulations, supervising the finan- cial health of institutions and ensuring consumer protection.
• Austrian National Bank ( Oesterreichische National- bank , OeNB) – The OeNB is Austria’s central bank, monitoring financial stability in Austria. While the OeNB does not directly regulate CASPs, its role in financial stability makes it an important stakeholder in the ecosystem. The OeNB is also responsible for part of the reporting system for issuers of asset- referenced tokens or issuers of e-money tokens. • Ministry of Finance ( Bundesministerium für Finanzen , BMF) – The BMF oversees fiscal policy, taxation and the overall financial regulation land- scape in Austria. It plays a key role in legislative processes related to financial regulation, including the implementation of EU directives such as MiCA. Alignment With International Regulation Austria’s regulators have closely aligned their crypto and broader financial-market framework with inter- national standards, mainly by promptly transposing FATF, BIS and IOSCO approaches through EU legis- lation (MiCA, AML package, DORA) and co-operative instruments, and then enforcing them strictly rather than creating standalone national crypto rules. Alignment with FATF Austria has repeatedly amended the Financial Market Anti-Money Laundering Act (FM-GwG) and related legislation to implement evolving FATF recommenda- tions, explicitly extending obligations to crypto-asset service providers. FATF standards are largely chan- nelled via EU law: for example, the FATF “travel rule” is implemented through the EU Funds Transfer Regu- lation, which Austria applies directly at national level. Alignment with BIS/financial stability standards OeNB and FMA implement BIS-inspired cyber- resilience and operational-risk work primarily via EU frameworks, in particular DORA and the TIBER-EU threat-led penetration testing regime. Austria has established TIBER-AT as the national implementation of TIBER-EU, including all mandatory TIBER-EU ele- ments. Alignment with IOSCO The IOSCO Multilateral Memorandum of Understand- ing (MMoU) is recognised by the FMA as the key inter- national benchmark for cross-border co-operation in securities supervision, and the FMA has been a signa-
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