Key facts
- The RUSI taskforce said crypto is a material risk for the UK ahead of its 2027 FATF evaluation.
- FATF assessors are due to visit the UK in June, before the full crypto regime takes effect on October 25, 2027.
- The City of London Police assesses that 66% of UK investment fraud involves crypto, per the report.
- The UK's 2025 National Risk Assessment rated crypto money laundering high risk, up from medium in 2020.
- The taskforce said the UK moved more conservatively than Hong Kong, the EU and Singapore on crypto rules.
- The taskforce warned firm-focused rules could push the highest-risk crypto outside the FCA's perimeter.
A taskforce convened by the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense and security think tank, said crypto is a material risk for the UK ahead of the country's 2027 evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force, according to a report published on Friday, November 13, 2026.
The FATF, a Paris-based body that sets global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing, conducts peer reviews known as mutual evaluations that grade countries on whether their rules work in practice. Its assessors are due to visit the UK in June, while the UK's full crypto regime does not take effect until October 25, 2027. The UK's report is due to be agreed at the FATF plenary in February 2028.
The taskforce, made up of experts from the private sector, law enforcement and civil society, met in September. It said this will be the first UK evaluation in which the FATF considers crypto, and its members were unanimous that assessors would examine the transition. The report cited the City of London Police assessment that 66% of investment fraud in the UK involves crypto, and noted that the UK's 2025 National Risk Assessment rated crypto money laundering high risk, up from medium in 2020.
The UK brought crypto firms under its money laundering rules in 2020, and legislation passed in February created a statutory crypto regime. The Financial Conduct Authority set out which crypto activities it will regulate in April and finalized its rulebook in June. The taskforce said the UK had moved more conservatively than Hong Kong, the EU and Singapore, and pointed to over-the-counter brokers, which the National Crime Agency estimated in the 2025 risk assessment are likely to launder hundreds of millions of dollars a year.