The global anti-money laundering watchdog FATF called out for greater adoption of crypto assets, as well as prioritising the need of countries to curb the flow of illegitimate funds while using cryptocurrencies.
The roadmap that raised awareness for improved virtual asset regulation was published in the latest report of FATF. It applies to all member-states and FSRBs, and it will allow them to apply the Travel Rule and other anti-money laundering recommendations to crypto.
In the last few months, multiple companies focused on the Travel Rule, as the regulatory developments in the crypto world demanded businesses to comply with it.
For example, in an interview published by The Paypers in 2022, Notabene shared its idea on why those rules are important to follow for companies, as well as its advice on how to reflect these requirements of different jurisdictions into one’s business more safely and efficiently.
The FAFT organisation amended in 2019 the Travel Rule in order to drive companies and providers of virtual asset services to collect and share data and information about both the source and the destination of all digital assets that are over USD 1,000.
The lack of regulations and protection of virtual assets in many countries around the world offers opportunities to criminals to make terrorist financiers exploit. The Travel Rule was also neglected even if it required obtaining, holding, and transmitting important information about virtual assets transaction data.
According to the report published by the Financial Action Task Force, the agreement regarding the promotion of the enforcement of standards of the Travel Rule was decided at the FAFT Plenary in France.
Thus, a roadmap was agreed on, designed to strengthen the implementation of standards both for digital assets and their providers. This roadmap will include multiple features, such as a stocktake of current levels of implementation that covers the global network.
Furthermore, the organisation plans that in the first half of 2024, the FAFT will keep a report on the steps FATS members and FSRB countries need to do with materially important virtual asset activity, in order to regulate and supervise their providers.
The report also focused on the situation in Russia and Ukraine, as the committee decided to suspend the Russian’s Federation’s membership since the country’s war against Ukraine entered its second year. The FATF mentioned that the action has threatened the financial stability of the whole world, as it violates multiple laws and regulations as well.
Other compliances with the Financial Action Task Force Standards were featured in multiple sections, focused on numerous geographies, countries, and industries. FATF focused on jurisdictions as well, including the ones under increased monitoring, the ones being subject to a call of action, or the ones that are no longer under increased monitoring, with the included regions specified for each of them.
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