The Lending, Credit and Finance (Amendment) Rules, 2026

Summary

These Rules amend the Lending, Credit and Finance Rules, 2023, specifically the Part III VASP (virtual asset service provider) licensing provisions made under the Lending, Credit and Finance (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2022. They came into force on 1 October 2026 and rework requirements around licensing, permitted activities, environmental disclosure, and safekeeping of customer virtual assets.

• Licensing scope: Holders of any regulatory licence who carry on activities regulated as Part III VASP business must hold a Part III VASP Licence; the prior rule limiting VASP services to institutional and wholesale counterparties has been removed.
• Prohibited activities: Part III VASP licensees remain prohibited from dealing in, trading in, or offering virtual assets or services designed to obscure the parties to a transaction or the flow of assets.
• Licence scope control: Applications must specify intended VASP activities, and licensees must not undertake unspecified VASP activities without the Commission's prior written approval, nor exceed activities permitted under their licence.
• Environmental declaration: The text retains (or reinstates, the deletion marking in the source is ambiguous) a requirement for annual publication of an environmental declaration on the consensus mechanisms of virtual assets dealt in, covering direct and indirect carbon emissions, calculation methodology, gross and mitigated emissions, and accessibility to the public.
• Safekeeping of customer virtual assets: New detailed rule 10.4 requires licensees with custody of customer virtual assets to safeguard keys/documents of title, properly record and segregate customer holdings, obtain explicit written consent before using or lending customer assets, take responsibility for nominees' acts, and maintain adequate collateral and income treatment where lending is permitted.

Because the source PDF does not preserve the underlining and strike through formatting used to mark new versus deleted text, some provisions (particularly the environmental declaration section) are ambiguous as to whether they are being removed or retained; readers should check the regulator's own formatted version for certainty on exact wording changes.

Key obligations

• Holders of licences under the regulatory Laws who carry on Part III VASP activities must hold a Part III VASP Licence
• Part III VASP licensees must not deal in, trade in, or offer virtual assets or services that aim to obscure the parties to a transaction or the flow of assets
• Applications for a Part III VASP Licence must specify the VASP activities the applicant intends to engage in
• Licensees must not engage in VASP activities not specified in their original application without the Commission's prior written approval
• Licensees must only undertake regulated activities permitted under their licence
• If publishing an annual environmental declaration, licensees must include direct and indirect carbon emissions, methodology and data sources, gross and mitigated emissions, and note where estimations are used, covering the licensee's financial year, and keep it readily accessible to the public
• Licensees with custody of customer virtual assets must keep safe (or arrange safekeeping of) documents of title, cryptographic keys or other means of control, properly record and segregate customer holdings, and not use customer assets for their own account without explicit prior written consent
• Licensees must not lend a customer's virtual assets to a third party without the customer's written consent, adequate documented terms, adequate collateral, and proper treatment of resulting income as customer money

Applies to

Part III VASP Licensees (virtual asset service providers)

Deadlines

• 1st October 2026: Coming into operation date of the Lending, Credit and Finance (Amendment) Rules, 2026

Related documents

• This document is made under Lending, Credit and Finance (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2022 (Consolidated)