These steps stand out as part of the increasing regulatory control in the country’s digital currency and remittance sectors in the country.

Austrac CEO Brendan Thomas announced on February 17 that the requests of the six providers have been rejected.

The reason for this decision was shown that the key personnel of these companies were convicted, tried or accused of serious crimes and a negative impact on their honesty.

Thomas said that their history questioned the reliability and business ethics of the companies.

In addition, more than 50 remittance providers and warnings were sent to the crypto exchange. These warnings were given because of the concern not to report suspicious transactions and money transfers and are considered as harbinger of possible regulatory actions.

Austrac announced that this step aims to eliminate systematic reporting deficiencies, especially in digital money exchanges and transfer sectors.

Thomas said, “Austrac’s analysis revealed systematic reporting deficiencies in money transfer and digital money exchange sectors. We aim to identify incompatible providers with the investigation we have initiated earlier last year and to increase the reporting of suspicious transactions in the sector. ”

Following the investigation, two providers were given conditional approval to their records because they did not meet the requirements on time. It is stated that if these providers do not meet the specified conditions, their records can be suspended or canceled. In addition, three companies whose requests for registration renewal were rejected are no longer operating in Australia.

These inspections by Austrac show that the regulatory pressure on digital money exchanges and transfer providers in Australia has increased. Especially the crypto currency sector attracts attention due to increasing number of users and transaction volume. Currently, there are 417 digital money exchanges and 5.112 remittance records in Australia.

In the light of the latest developments, the two bankruptcy crypto exchanges - FTX Express and Zipmex Australia, a subsidiary of FTX’s Australian subsidiary, were removed from the country’s digital money exchange registration. This step is seen as part of the effort of regulatory authorities to reduce risks in the sector.

Austrac CEO Brendan Thomas said in December 2024 that the institution would focus more on the crypto currency sector in 2025, and that especially crypto ATM providers would have been firmly inspected against the potential of violating the laws of prevention of money laundering.

Australia is the third largest center of the world for Bitcoin and crypto ATMs. According to Coin ATM radar data, the number of crypto ATMs, which was 67 in August 2022, has increased over 1.453 as of 2025.

This rapid increase triggers the increasingly adoption of crypto currency in the country and increasing the supervision of regulators towards this sector.

During the same period, Austrac proposed the rules to prevent more strict money laundering and prevent financing of terrorism (AML/CTF) in order to combat firm surveillance and financial crimes in the crypto sector. These regulations aim to better control crypto assets and reduce the risk of money laundering.

In addition, the Australian securities and Investment Commission (ISIC) issued a counseling certificate on new instructions that require the licensing of companies operating in this field to include crypto assets in the category of financial products in December.

These developments show that the crypto currency sector in Australia will face more strict arrangements.

This wave of control initiated by Austrac aims to increase the compliance obligations of digital money exchanges and transfer providers in Australia and to create a stronger control mechanism in the fight against financial crimes.