Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress the FCA has made on its investigation into the administration of Ziglu Bank in June 2025.

Ziglu Limited is an electronic money institution which has been authorised under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 since September 2020. These regulations require firms to meet important standards before they are allowed to carry out payment services and issue electronic money, and the FCA carries out supervision to ensure that it meets the required standards. Ziglu also provides cryptoasset services and is registered with the FCA for the purposes of ensuring compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.

On 23 May 2025, the FCA placed restrictions on Ziglu in relation to particular products. On 17 June, Ziglu agreed to stop carrying out both payments and cryptoasset activities while allowing customers to withdraw funds. On 7 July, Ziglu entered special administration and the FCA is engaging with the special administrators as appropriate.

Payments and e-money firms are required to safeguard customer funds and segregate these from funds which belong to the firm. The special administrators are working to carry out an assessment of all funds held by Ziglu to establish which are safeguarded for customers, and which belong to Ziglu. However, cryptoasset activities are currently unregulated and Ziglu is not required to safeguard funds or assets which relate to unregulated activities. This means there is no guarantee that cryptoasset customers will receive all or any of their funds or assets back.

Recently, the FCA published new rules coming into force on 7 May 2026 to improve safeguarding standards across the payments sector. The Government has also recently laid legislation to create a comprehensive financial services regulatory regime for cryptoassets.