Coinbase's Irish subsidiary was fined 3.25 million euros for violations related to customer fund protection

According to Bloomberg, the Central Bank of Ireland has fined Coinbase's Irish subsidiary €3.25 million (approximately $3.6 million) due to deficiencies in its outsourcing governance framework and inadequate customer fund protection measures.

Regulators pointed out that the company relied too heavily on the U.S. Coinbase Group to execute customer fund protection processes, and design flaws in the system along with insufficient control testing led to a long-term shortfall in the designated customer fund protection accounts.

A Coinbase spokesperson stated that the relevant issues mainly occurred during the U.S. banking crisis in 2023, when the company directed customers to deposit funds into other bank accounts of Coinbase to mitigate potential losses from bank failures. However, this practice resulted in the mixing of customer funds with those held by other entities of Coinbase, which did not comply with regulatory requirements.

Last year, the Central Bank of Ireland also fined Coinbase Europe €21.5 million for violating anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing transaction monitoring obligations (which included a 30% settlement discount).