Various industry observers have long lambasted the lack of coherent international rules relating to cryptocurrencies. Now, however, it would appear that work has begun on resolving this issue, as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has revealed that it is developing rules for global cryptocurrency regulation.
This news comes from a recent Reuters report, which states that ”jurisdictions worldwide will be required to license or regulate cryptocurrency exchanges […] to help stamp out the use of digital money for money laundering, terrorism financing and other crimes.”
The Financial Action Task Force is based in Paris, and is an intergovernmental organization mainly intended to fight money laundering and terrorism financing.
Furthermore, the organization said that it will start publishing openly accessible rules for cryptocurrency regulations in June 2019, according to FATF’s president, Marshall Billingslea.
More specifically, Billingslea noted that ”by June, we will issue additional instructions on the standards and how we expect them to be inforced.”
He also noted that the manner in which different countries implement cryptocurrency rules will be subject to recurrent review buy FATF. Moreover, countries that do not follow FATF’s recommendation could potentially be added to a ”FATF blacklist” of sorts, which could limit countries from accessing the global financial system.
The decision to help develop international cryptocurrency regulation guidelines does not, however, come out of the blue.
Rather, this news comes following a plenary meeting the Financial Action Task Force held this past week, which saw officials from a whopping 204 jurisdictions around the globe meet to confer on – among other things – cryptocurrency regulations.
Nevertheless, the Financial Action Task Force has been working towards this recent announcement for some time. This June, TAFT announced that it would hold talks on creating ”legally binding international rules for cryptocurrency exchanges”.
The cryptocurrency industry has previously been characterized by substantial regulatory uncertainty, due to the lack of a coherent and clear international framework for how virtual currencies should be regulated.
Subsequently, this has led to significant legislative dissonance between different countries, with separate nations treating virtual currencies in wholly different ways, which has created a murky regulatory environment for businesses dealing with cryptocurrencies.
Last month saw South Korea call for greater cooperation between regulators for dealing with cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, something which Toshi Times covered at the time.
It remains to be seen what form such international regulations would take, but it seems as if we will know for sure come next June.
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Source: Toshi Times
Original Post: Intergovernmental AML Watchdog Working on International Cryptocurrency Regulations
