Canada Issues Official Sketch of New Crypto Regulations with Focus on KYC/AML
The Canadian government has discharged an official draft of new directions on crypto trades and installment processors, Canada Gazette reports June 9.
As per the draft, the new controls look to address “various lacks” that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) laid out after their assessment in 2015-16, specifically in reinforcing Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Regime (AML/ATF).
The new controls will treat crypto trades and installment processors as cash benefit businesses (MSB), which expects them to report extensive transactions — those over $10,000 Canadian dollars ($7700 USD) — and another Know Your Customer (KYC) edge set at transactions of $1000 CAD ($770 USD).
The draft also contains a money-saving advantage investigation, which uncovers the controls would cost about $61 CAD mln ($47 mln USD) throughout the following 10 years.
Francis Pouliot, co-founder of Montreal-based blockchain counseling firm Catallaxy, tweeted his reaction to the draft:
“New requirement: ‘Large Virtual Currency Transaction Record’ means businesses are required to ask for and keep details of every transaction over $10,000, like large-cash transaction reports. That’s going to be extremely difficult and invasive to implement. I will object to this.”
The FATF is an intergovernmental association that creates strategies to battle illegal tax avoidance. These approaches are not legitimately official, but rather as indicated by the draft, Canada trusts that executing these controls will positively affect the nation’s universal notoriety.
