Coinbase Ireland agrees €3.25m safeguarding sanction subject to High Court confirmation

Coinbase Ireland Limited has agreed to a reprimand and €3,252,618 penalty over safeguarding and outsourcing breaches between 1 November 2020 and 19 August 2025. The Central Bank’s 22 October announcement says the sanctions take effect once confirmed by the High Court.[3]

The regulator found excessive reliance on the US group, insufficient local oversight, inadequate safeguarding system design and testing, and weak escalation. The designated safeguarding account was underfunded for lengthy periods. The entity issues and redeems e-money used to buy crypto on Coinbase’s platform.[3]

Safeguarding failures

Coinbase said it self-reported the issues and that customers did not suffer financial loss or lose access to funds. That is relevant to the outcome, but safeguarding rules are preventative: the absence of realised loss does not remove the obligation to maintain the required controls continuously.[1]

The earlier €21.46 million case concerned transaction-monitoring failures, including more than 30 million transactions that were not properly monitored during the affected period. Combining the two penalties into one narrative would misstate both the conduct and the regulatory purpose.[2]

The regulator set the undiscounted penalty at €4,646,597 and applied a 30% settlement discount. The resulting sanction addresses the e-money entity’s own obligations, rather than being a finding about every Coinbase service worldwide.[3]

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