Most cas­u­al observ­ers would of noticed that the Mar­kets in Crypto Reg­u­la­tion (MiCA) was final­ized and pub­lished in the EU Offi­cial Journ­al on 9 June 2023. As a res­ult, the EU as a bloc, became the first place in the world to estab­lish a com­pre­hens­ive reg­u­lat­ory frame­work for crypto-assets. Also on 9 June and with far less fan­fare, the recast of Reg­u­la­tion (EU) 2015/847 (Trans­fers of Funds Reg­u­la­tion, “TFR”) was pub­lished in the EU Offi­cial Journ­al.

The TFR recast extends the scope of the cur­rent TFR to the trans­fer of crypto-assets, which is in line with the Fin­an­cial Action Task Force’s (FATF) stand­ards. The co-legis­lat­ors reached a pro­vi­sion­al agree­ment on the FTR recast on 29th June 2022. In this TFR recast (“Pro­vi­sion­al Agree­ment”) the European Bank­ing Author­ity (EBA) was giv­en ten legis­lat­ive man­dates, of which, four of them were related to top­ics that are to be addressed in the revised ML/TF Risk Factors Guidelines.

In this Law Alert Block­chain Reg­u­lat­ory Expert, Timothy Bis­sesar out­lines the key amend­ments set out in EBA’s con­sulta­tion on the Revised Guidelines on money laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ist fin­an­cing (ML/TF) risk factors. The pro­posed changes aim to extend the scope of ML/TF Risk Factors Guidelines to crypto-asset ser­vice pro­viders (CASPs). The con­sulta­tion runs until 31 August 2023.