Month: August 2016

EBA position about proposal of modifications of AML4

European Bank Authority published its Opinion about the European Commission’s proposal regarding Virtual Currencies.

The EBA welcomes the proposal, but highligths some issues that appears ambiguous, and mainly:

  1. Transposition of the deadline (01.01.2017 is too early to implement rules and let actors to comply).
  2. Virtual currency transactions should remain outside of the scope of PSD2.
  3. The status of the Exchangers and Custodian Wallet Providers should be clarified.
  4. Authorities should be enabled to obtain information, also about beneficial owner of Exchangers and Wallet Providers.
  5. The management and controllers will fit a proper test
  6. Sanctions should remain.

The opinion seems to go in the opposite direction of European Parliament, considering Virtual Currencies as a medium for money laundering and financing terrorism in absence of any evidences.

The amendments requested go beyond the scope of extension of AML to virtual currencies.