Swyftx gets Australian AFSL and starts eyeing crypto payments, stablecoins, and merchants

Australian crypto exchange Swyftx says it will look for opportunities in crypto payments after securing an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL). The part that matters for payment operators: the new license opens the door to business and retail payment services, just as Australia is moving to ban card surcharges on Visa and Mastercard debit and credit payments from Oct. 1.

1. Swyftx said on Wednesday that it received its AFSL from Australia’s market regulator, joining Coinbase, BTC Markets and Crypto.com. The license allows it to offer derivative products such as crypto options or futures to retail customers, and also non-cash payment facility authorization, which sets up the company to offer payment services to business and retail clients. It does not hold an AFSL to offer spot crypto.
2. Interim co-CEO Andrea Yuen told Cointelegraph that Swyftx “won’t be a pure crypto spot exchange in future.” She said the company sees “a lot of opportunity in the payments space” following local changes to credit card surcharging, and added that “crypto payments and stablecoins offer an opportunity for merchants to reduce the transaction costs they might have to bear in future.”
3. From Oct. 1, Australian businesses will be banned from adding surcharges to Visa and Mastercard debit and credit card payments. That matters because the cost does not disappear; merchants absorb it, which is exactly the kind of opening crypto payment rails and stablecoins tend to try to occupy.
4. Swyftx also said it wants to expand overseas. The company already serves clients in New Zealand and the US, and previously filed an application with the Financial Conduct Authority in March 2022 when it was looking at the UK. Yuen said the goal is to use “a well-regulated Australian market as a base to expand our presence overseas.”
5. AFSL rules for crypto are tightening. Crypto firms with an AFSL need to meet the same compliance duties as other finance companies, and legislation passed in April requires most crypto firms to hold an AFSL from April 9, 2027. ASIC recently extended the grace period to Sept. 30 and said it has received around 30 license applications from crypto businesses since October last year. So far, only a small number of crypto exchanges have obtained AFSLs, including Coinbase, BTC Markets, Crypto.com and KuCoin.

For high-risk PSPs and merchants, the signal is straightforward: Australia is turning crypto exchanges into more fully licensed financial-service providers at the same time as card acceptance is becoming less flexible on surcharging. That combination is exactly why crypto and stablecoins keep showing up in payment conversations rather than just trading ones.