UK government wants stricter EU oversight rules for cryptocurrencies

The UK government wants the current EU anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing directive to be amended to include currency exchanges and wallet providers. Supervision then becomes much stricter.

Stephen Barclay, Secretary of State at the UK Treasury Department, has said his government in the EU is in negotiations to amend the European Anti-Money Laundering Directive to bring crypto traders under a strict surveillance regime.

Barclay says there is little evidence that the virtual coins are being used for money laundering, but he believes this risk will grow significantly, he told The Guardian. According to him, cryptocurrencies can be used to facilitate and enable internet crime. That’s why he wants it to be more strictly enforced.

If the trade in, for example, bitcoin is brought under the regime of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, this means that traders are obliged to reveal their identity. The trading platforms must then very carefully identify the identities of their customers and report suspicious transactions to the authorities. The relevant national supervisor will monitor this.

The new European rules are expected to come into force in the next few months. According to Barclay, the negotiations could already be concluded by the end of this year. Because this is a European directive, the national European member states must first amend their national laws before the new rules come into effect.