The Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) through resolution 215/2021 enabled the use of certain virtual assets in commercial transactions throughout the territory of the Caribbean island. The legal instrument, signed by the president of the financial entity Marta Sabina Wilson González, recognizes the payments of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies entered into force on September 15, after being published in the Official Gazette on August 26 and has as purpose “to enable the use of certain virtual assets in commercial transactions.“

The new regulatory framework also establishes “the granting of a license to digital asset service providers that operate throughout the national territory” and highlights that it is “the only entity that authorizes financial institutions and other legal entities so that they can use crypto assets between them.”

The norm stresses that state institutions, political, social or other organizations may not use digital assets without prior authorization from the regulatory body. In addition, the country undertakes to comply with “the international standards regarding the prevention and detection of money laundering and terrorist financing established by the International Financial Action Group (FATF).

Taking risks

The regulation shows some ambiguities since it does not establish what type of quote will be taken into account to carry out transactions, but it is explicit in alerting potential users to some dangers, stating that “they represent risks to monetary policy and financial stability, due to due to their high volatility (…) They are assets without the backing of monetary authorities and excessive anonymity of registered users.”

The president of the Caribbean island, Miguel Díaz Canel, indicated that the convenience of the use of cryptoactives has been evaluated and they want to prevent citizens from being “scammed by a chain of events that are happening worldwide.”

Benefits for the population

The main source of income for the Cuban population is the remittances sent by thousands of exiled people to their families so that they can purchase the products of the basic basket and satisfy the priority needs. And it is precisely in this process that bitcoin can be very useful for citizenship, since it offers “a fast and cheap way to send cross-border transfers without having to resort to traditional high-cost services.“

The American economist Steve Hanke made a publication recently where he exposes that the Caribbean country is among those that can obtain great benefits with the acceptance of Bitcoin because it registers “the highest average commission payment for sending remittances, which is about 10.53 %.“

M. Rodríguez

Source: criptonoticias.com

La entrada Central Bank of Cuba authorizes the legal use of cryptocurrencies apareció primero en Bitfinance.

Officials of the European Commission recently released a new bill proposing stricter standards for digital currency transactions and wallets, which shows a tightening of regulations for the cryptocurrency sector.

The central objective of the proposal is to stimulate strict supervision of crypto movements as part of a global strategy that allows the enforcement and strengthening of anti-money laundering (AML) and know your client (KYC) standards as well as avoiding “money laundering and terrorist financing.”

According to the proposed requirements, “companies and digital currency service providers must collect more information about the senders and recipients of transactions. Specifically, what is known as the FATF; the Financial Action Task Force travel rule would apply to cryptocurrency transactions to make them traceable.”

In the European Union, the recommendations made by FATF are already being applied to electronic transactions. However, the project proposes to expand the “scope of regulation 2015/847 to include transfers of crypto assets made by crypto asset service providers (CASP), in addition to the current provisions on transfer of funds.”

The bill states: “It aims to reflect in the amendments to EU legislation made in June 2019 to the Recommendation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on new technologies to cover ‘virtual assets’ and ‘providers of services of virtual assets’. In particular, the new obligations of information for the CASP originators and beneficiaries in the two extremes of a transfer of cryptoassets.”

The proposal also establishes that all organizations that manage virtual assets must handle information on the identification of users since anonymous crypto-asset wallets will be prohibitedby the new law.

M. Rodríguez

Source: ambito.com

La entrada EU proposes to ban anonymous crypto wallets apareció primero en Bitfinance.