G20 Sets Eyes on October Deadline to Review Crypto Anti-Money Laundering Standard

G20 member countries have all their eyes set on October deadline when a global anti-money laundering (AML) standard on cryptocurrency will be reviewed.

A statement was issued on July 22 which revealed that central bank governors and finance ministers of the G20 member countries had a meeting and they together planned to have a vigilant monitoring of cryptocurrencies.

The countries further suggested the formation of FATF or a Financial Action Task Force to combat terrorist financing and money laundering.

The member countries said, “We reiterate our March commitments related to the implementation of the FATF standards and we ask the FATF to clarify in October 2018 how its standards apply to crypto-assets.”

Financial Stability Board (FSB) also agreed with this and issued a press release stating the same thing.

G20 and FSB

A communique was issued by the G20 member states which revealed that the cryptos and their associated technology can prove to be beneficial for a range of sectors of the global economy.

They said, “Crypto-assets do, however, raise issues with respect to consumer and investor protection, market integrity, tax evasion, money laundering, and terrorist financing. Crypto-assets lack key attributes of sovereign currencies.”

“While crypto-assets do not at this point pose a global financial stability risk, we remain vigilant.”

FSB wrote a letter to the central bank governors and finance ministers of G20 member states and provided the same assessment. The board also announced that they are working with CPMI (Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures) to create a standardized and robust framework for tracking and monitoring cryptocurrencies.

G20 and Standardized AML Reporting

It seems that the G20 countries are making serious efforts to standardize the monitoring framework to prevent the use of cryptos in any illegal activity. Earlier this year, Japan also expressed its concern over the use of cryptos in terrorist funding and money laundering.

As per the communique released on Sunday:

“We [the G20] welcome updates provided by the FSB and the SSBs and look forward to their future work to monitor the potential risks of crypto-assets and to assess multilateral responses as needed. We reiterate our March commitments related to the implementation of the FATF standards, and we ask the FATF to clarify in October 2018 how its standards apply to crypto-assets.”

With the on-going threat of illegal and terrorist activities, it makes sense to be vigilant and monitor the crypto transactions. Amid all the positivity and how useful blockchain technology has appeared to be so far, the full scope of its potential – positive and negative – is still relatively unknown.

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