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Atbash Amell
Jun 22, 2019

Latin America Will Have To Adapt With FATF Regulations On Cryptos

Latin FATF Exchanges Cryptos

Table of contents

  1. Pernicious Norms

Latin American countries will have to adapt to the FATF recommendations to regulate the exchanges of cryptos. The intergovernmental body has just formalized a set of suggestions for the region.

The recommendations issued by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on crypto exchanges and other providers of services should also be adopted in Latin America. This is apparent from the information on the active members of the association contained in its official website.

The FATF has just formalized a set of recommendations in which it guides countries on how to regulate crypto exchanges. To prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

These rules proved controversial. As they are based on applying to the industry of cryptocurrencies regulations of the banking system. Some of which would be detrimental to the sector.

For the time being, four Spanish-speaking countries are among the 38 active members of the group. These would be Argentina, Brazil (Portuguese), Mexico and Spain.

The FATF has global subsidiaries. In Latin America, the Financial Action Task Force for Latin America (GAFILAT), affiliated to the FATF since 2006, includes most countries in the region (17 members). This implies that Latin American cryptocurrency service providers will be affected by the regulations.

Only Venezuela, El Salvador, and Belize are not registered with GAFILAT. However, there is another regional grouping, sister to the FATF, in the Caribbean area. This is the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), which brings together the countries of that region (25 members), including Venezuela, El Salvador, and Belize.

Pernicious Norms

One of the requirements of the FATF —the most worrying for crypto exchanges— is the swapping of user information.

The KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations are transformed into a system for sharing user identification data along with transactions, both between users and between service providers.

This standard, known in the banking sector as the “travel policy” requires the issuer of a transaction to include data such as the name and physical address of the user who originated the transaction.

In addition, the FATF guide deals with privacy-centric crypto services. And asks countries to ensure that these providers are compliant. It even points out that they must be able to freeze or prohibit transactions with sanctioned persons.

Providers of these services have warned that the regulations, as presented, will be detrimental to the operation of exchanges.

The majority of opinions agree that applying them could lead to the closing of operations of many companies that manage cryptocurrencies.

In the meantime, although the FATF recommendations are not binding, each country in Latin America must ensure that its regulations on exchanges are adapted. That is if they don't want to be blacklisted as a dangerous country for foreign investment.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Cryptoknowmics.

Latin America Will Have To Adapt With FATF Regulations On Cryptos
The best things in life are encrypted: 1. G-d, 2. The heart of our soul mate, 3. real money (bitcoin), 4. and a hack-resistant computer.