Swiss authorities, to fight the issue of money laundering, are pursuing to reduce the amount threshold of crypto transactions by restricting it to only 1000 Swiss francs. Following the crossing of this limit, the transacting party would be required to provide the identity thereof. The FINMA (Swiss-Financial-Market-Supervisory-Authority), which is targeted at the protection of all bank investors, consumers, and policyholders from scams, is necessitating for the providers of virtual assets to take suitable steps ensuring that the platforms thereof are not involved in carrying out or assisting any criminal purposes.
The anti-money laundering policy
The regulator, through a letter sent by Christoph Kluser “the supervisor of the system of parabanking” would be eager to examine the steps taken as a portion of a considerable effort to battle with money laundering cases that emerged recently. These cases include 1MDB, Venezuelan PDVSA, and two-graft-scandals that made the authorities realize the weaknesses present in law which is anti-money laundering being 24 years old, and revise them as the law permitted such practices to prosper. FINMA has recently denied providing a license to a broker of crypto named “Bitcoin Suisse” and highlighted that some possible money laundering problems may be disturbing the consumers as there are some shortcomings in the anti-money laundering system of the platform.
FINMA focuses on Bitcoin ATMs
A more rigorous approach towards the crypto restrictions is being considered to be taken by FINMA in the matter of the transactions done as reciprocal to the fiat money. Presently, the regulator is enforcing a boundary over Swiss Francs’ transactions having up to 1000 units as a maximum over a month to be exchanged with cryptocurrencies. Following this, the involved participants would be required to reveal the identities of the clients dealing with cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. This regulation was approved after consultation with the prominent figures of the industry. However, the money restraints have boosted anxiety because the models of industry business are currently moving towards being impacted.
After considering that the connected transactions are particularly targeted in the legislation regarding money laundering rather than individual transactions, the industry became surprised by the regulation. As a sign of the access of cryptocurrency in Switzerland, more than 85,000 merchants are present in the country and are accepting crypto to be a lawful method of payment. Nowadays, Swiss banks such as BBVA and SEBA also accept crypto to be a legitimate method of payment. The latest FINMA regulation aspires to attack the crypto ATMs’ utilization considering that drug dealers take benefit out of this system.
