Agant appoints Nephos to verify GBPA stablecoin reserves

Agant, a UK stablecoin issuer, has appointed Nephos Group as the proof-of-reserves attestation partner for GBPA, its sterling-denominated stablecoin, a digital token designed to hold a stable £1 value by being backed one-for-one with sterling reserves and redeemable for sterling. According to an announcement published on 6 August 2026 and reported the following day by International Accounting Bulletin, Nephos is expected to carry out independent assurance work under ISAE 3000 (Revised), an international standard for assurance engagements outside a conventional audit, intended to help verify that the sterling value of GBPA's reserves equals the nominal value of GBPA in issue on a one-for-one basis: £1 of reserve value for every £1 of GBPA in issue.

The appointment directly affects qualifying UK business customers, who can onboard with Agant directly under its platform terms, and may also matter to retail users who obtain GBPA through an onboarded customer rather than opening a direct account. It also matters because of timing. Agant says it currently holds a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) registration under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, not a full stablecoin authorisation, and the wider UK rulebook for stablecoin issuers is not yet in force. The FCA's authorisation gateway for that future regime is due to open on 30 September 2026, with the regime itself expected to take effect from 25 October 2027.

What an ISAE 3000 attestation is expected to test

ISAE 3000 (Revised), published by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and effective for reports dated on or after 15 December 2015, governs assurance engagements other than audits or reviews of historical financial statements. It can support either a reasonable-assurance or a limited-assurance engagement, depending on the scope the parties agree.

The August 2026 announcement does not say which level Nephos will provide, how often it will report, what measurement date or period each report will cover, what materiality threshold will apply, or who holds the reserve assets. Those details, along with the precise criteria Nephos will test, should be checked against the assurance report itself once it is issued. No completed or dated Nephos report for GBPA was located in the material reviewed for this article; the announcement uses prospective language describing what Nephos "will provide", not confirmation that testing has started or concluded.

What proof of reserves would not prove

An ISAE 3000 report, once published, will give assurance strictly over the subject matter, criteria, date or period, and assurance level stated in that report. It is not a general verdict on whether GBPA is safe to hold.

Matching the sterling value of reserves to the value of GBPA in issue, on its own, does not establish that those reserves are liquid enough to meet redemptions under stress, free of competing legal claims, protected for holders if Agant becomes insolvent, immediately accessible, or immune from market, counterparty, operational, fraud, cyber or smart-contract risk. The Bank of England and FCA's joint material on the future regulation of systemic stablecoin issuers, published 1 July 2026, treats one-for-one asset matching as only one element of a much wider set of controls that also covers redemption rights, the composition of backing assets, capital, liquid reserves, safeguarding arrangements, reconciliation, third-party custody and wind-down planning. One-for-one reserve evidence would not, by itself, establish those wider protections; readers will need to check Nephos's eventual scope and criteria to see which, if any, of those matters it addresses.

GBPA is also a multi-chain token, which adds a practical question for any reserve check. The 6 August 2026 announcement said GBPA had launched on Ethereum, Base, Tempo and Solana; Agant's website, as accessed on 26 September 2026, additionally lists Arc. Whether a future Nephos report will reconcile reserves against GBPA outstanding across every network, including tokens that are burned or bridged between chains, is not disclosed in the material reviewed.

Agant's FCA registration is not approval of GBPA

Agant Finance Limited states that it is registered with the FCA as a cryptoasset firm under the Money Laundering Regulations, under firm reference number 1037671. This is a real registration, but it is narrow. The FCA's own guidance on the cryptoasset anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) regime says registration under the Money Laundering Regulations is a legal requirement for in-scope cryptoasset businesses and is not a recommendation or endorsement of the firm. Until the future UK cryptoasset framework takes effect on 25 October 2027, the FCA says its oversight of crypto firms remains limited principally to financial promotions rules and AML/CTF controls.

That means GBPA itself has not been approved, authorised or endorsed by the FCA. Some first-party and social material around GBPA has described it in terms that could be read as "regulated" or "FCA-registered" in a broader sense; the accurate description, based on the sources reviewed, is that Agant is FCA-registered under the Money Laundering Regulations, not that GBPA has been approved as a regulated stablecoin.

No FSCS or Financial Ombudsman Service cover

Agant states plainly that services relating to GBPA are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) or the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FCA's AML/CTF guidance confirms the same point from the regulator's side: registration under the Money Laundering Regulations does not itself give customers access to either scheme. In practice, that means GBPA-related services carry no FSCS protection and no FOS route for complaints.

Who uses GBPA and how redemption is meant to work

Under Agant's platform terms, direct onboarding is available to qualifying UK business customers. Individual retail users are not able to become direct platform customers; they may obtain GBPA through a business customer that has already been onboarded. The precise redemption mechanics available to those different categories of user, including who holds a direct right to redeem GBPA for sterling, on what timescale, subject to what minimum amounts or fees, and how that right would be treated if Agant became insolvent, were not established from the sources reviewed for this article.

Questions still open before the first report

Several practical points remain unanswered pending Nephos's first published report: whether the engagement will provide reasonable or limited assurance, how frequently attestations will be issued, what measurement date each report will use, what assets back GBPA and where they are held, and whether reserve calculations will cover GBPA across all five networks currently listed on Agant's site. Agant's broader marketing language describing reserves as "fully audited and attested" should be read against the fact that the appointment announcement describes future work, not a completed report.

What to watch

The material fact still to come is Nephos's first published ISAE 3000 report on GBPA, which should state the assurance level, the measurement date and the specific criteria tested. Readers with a direct interest in GBPA can also track two regulatory dates: the FCA's authorisation gateway for the future UK cryptoasset regime, due to open on 30 September 2026, and the regime's expected commencement on 25 October 2027, after which stablecoin issuers will face requirements that go beyond simple one-for-one asset matching. Anyone assessing GBPA in the meantime should treat Agant's stated FCA registration, and any future Nephos attestation, as addressing specific and limited questions rather than a general guarantee of safety.