The Financial Commission, an external dispute resolution body for global forex, derivatives, and cryptocurrency brokers and their clients, has announced its decision to extend its financial technology certificate service primarily to fintech firms seeking capital raises through initial coin offerings (ICO).
Not only does the Financial Commission offer dispute settlement services, but the regulator further acts as an authority certifying trading platform technologies for online trading firms and exchanges, since 2014.
In order to provide its new service, the Financial Commission has established the ICO Certification Committee (ICC), the panel of which will consist of fintech experts from the aforementioned markets. The committee will have the Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) as their source of support.
Peter Tatarnikov
The founding member of the ICC and Financial Commission Chairman, Peter Tatarnikov, explained the company’s decision to extend the service to ICO issuers: “The ICO certification service was a natural addition to our existing technology certification service for Fintech companies. Cryptofinancing via ICOs is skyrocketing in popularity yet the process is still ridden with challenges for issuers and investors – so the need to establish best practices for Fintech companies seeking capital raises via cryptofinancing was needed and Financial Commission is pleased to now offer certification to eligible firms seeking to do an ICO.”
The certification will be awarded according to the ICC’s assessment of whether the cryptocurrency platforms of issuers are in line with the minimum set of criteria determined by the ICC.
Though 2017 has been named the year of the ICOs, the attention that these events draw is not always in their best interests. Just a week ago, Enigma had its ICO hacked , and $500,000 was stolen from the company. In another incident, FileCoin had to suspend its ICO after having raised $186 million in an hour, as the system cracked under the pressure.