E.U. Representatives Clarify the Proposed Anti-Money Laundering Directive

The European Commission and its partnering agencies including Europol have become increasingly active in its investigation on terrorist financing and and the use of digital currencies such as bitcoin in the dark web. As a part of its global initiative to reduce and restrict financial flows of terrorists and money laundering, the European Commission has proposed to regulate digital currency exchange platforms under the scope of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which would require bitcoin exchanges to keep sensitive customer data records for bitcoin-to-fiat trading. “These platforms have....

Triggered by the Paris and Brussels attacks, the proposed EU directive seeks to introduce stricter rules on the use of virtual currencies and prepaid cards. How will this affect Bitcoin and digital payments in general? CoinTelegraph spoke to Siân Jones, Founder of European Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Forum, about the proposal and its possible outcomes. Anti-Money Laundering Directive. As Siân Jones told us, EU officials had been working on the new law since February, talking with virtual currency and prepaid card stakeholders and others, to draft the proposed new directive....

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has advised that the European Commission establish a regulatory regime specific to virtual currencies such as bitcoin. Commenting on the commission’s proposal to amend the existing European anti-money laundering directive, the EBA expresses the opinion that, in the long term, oversight of digital currencies should not fall under regular anti-money laundering provisions, but rather under a specialized EU body. In a response to the commission published by the EBA in August 2016, the banking authority suggests that the existing anti-money laundering....

The changes brought about by 6AMLD will affect a lot of businesses, but there is still time to prepare for new rules. In January 2020, the European Union released its Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive to increase transparency while tackling fraud, money laundering and cybercrimes.The 5AMLD extended the scope of customer due diligence checks, introduced domestic and politically exposed persons, extended the creation of central registrars of beneficial ownership, and extended Anti-Money Laundering checks to majority-owned subsidiaries outside the European Union.Related: New EU AML....

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have proposed amending a directive on preventing money laundering and terrorist financing that will require cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets to identify suspicious activity, a directive that would include identifying bitcoin users. The directive constitutes the main legal instrument to prevent the EU financial system from being used for money laundering and terrorist financing. The directive, to be transposed by June 26, 2017, establishes a framework to require member states to identify and mitigate risks related to money....