Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has sued Finder Wallet, a crypto yield product start-up and the subsidiary of prominent comparison website Finder.com. The product offered users accessibility to earn a yield on their cryptocurrency. The commission alleged that without an appropriate license, the company was offering financial services and legal advice.

ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court, “Our message to [the crypto] industry is clear: just because an offer involves a crypto-asset related product does not guarantee it will fall outside the current regulatory regime.”

Fred Schebesta and Frank Restuccia are Finder’s founders. In late November, Finder’s co-CEO, Fred Schebesta, stepped down after receiving the warning from the ASIC.

The court said, “Issuers of financial products such as debentures must issue appropriate risk disclosure documents and develop appropriate target market determinations to ensure that consumers are not sold inappropriate products.”

“We allege that Finder Wallet failed to do this, potentially putting their customers at risk of harm.”

On the other hand, Finder has taken the stand and argued that they don’t need a license to offer such products. Frank Restuccia informed the media in Australia that regulators’ judgment of the product needs to be more accurate. The CEO clarified that regarding legal standards, Finder was  “always on the front foot.”

ASIC’s federal court report pointed out while accusing Finder Wallet that the firm was using the customers’ funds as deposit funds. The funds were further converted into Australian dollars backed by TAUD stablecoin. Furthermore, the firm increased the interest rate from 4.01% to 6.01%.

The two CEOs of Schebesta and Restuccia have worked together before for an over-the-counter crypto trading desk, HiveEx, that was sold to Alameda Research. The platform offered banking access to FTX and was later sold to Alameda Research for 300,000 Australian Dollars.

Deputy Chair of ASIC, Sarah Court, has claimed that no company offering exposure to crypto assets is immune from regulations.

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