Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) agreed on Wednesday 1 December on the EU Council’s negotiating position with the European Parliament on the proposed regulation extending EU transfer information rules to crypto-assets.
Included in the July legislative package to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (see EUROPE 12766/5), this proposal aligns EU rules with the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) within the OECD.
When transferring crypto-assets, crypto-asset service providers will have to collect information about recipients and senders, similar to existing rules for payments. These data will be accessible to the competent national authorities responsible for supervising the implementation of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules.
Member States clarify the European Commission’s original proposal by imposing prudential requirements in the case of crypto-asset transfers involving an ‘unhosted wallet’. In this case, the crypto-asset service provider will need to obtain information about the issuer and the beneficiary via its customer.
“This agreement is an important step towards closing the gaps in our financial systems that are malevolently used by criminals to launder unlawful gains or finance terrorist activities”, Slovenian Finance Minister Andrej Šircelj said in a statement.
The previous week, the Council also adopted its negotiating position on the framework for markets in crypto-assets (MiCA) and rules enhancing the digital operational resilience of the financial sector (DORA) (see EUROPE 12841/2). The MiCA and crypto-asset transfer traceability proposals will apply at the same time.
See the Council’s position: https://bit.ly/31mqVjh (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)