FATF: Strengthening the supervision of global virtual assets (II)

The rise of new technologies, products, and services is one of the major changes in the global financial system. On the one hand, these new technologies have the potential to stimulate financial innovation and improve the efficiency of financial operations. On the other hand, they also create new opportunities for criminals and terrorists to launder money or obtain funding for their illegal activities. In recent years, FATF's regulatory activities in the face of the risks caused by the rise of financial technology are as follows:

In June 2014, FATF issued a report on virtual currency and its payment mechanism to clarify the concept of virtual currency and analyze its risks in AML/CFT.

In June 2015, FATF introduced the "Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach to Virtual Currencies", calling on all countries to take coordinated actions to prevent virtual currencies from being used for crime and terrorism financing.

In October 2018, FATF revised the virtual asset standard through the revision of "Recommendation 15-New Technologies", and added two new definitions to the FATF vocabulary to clarify its application to virtual assets and virtual asset service providers.

In June 2019, the FATF revised the global standards to clearly apply the requirements of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing to virtual assets and virtual asset service providers, and launched a 12-month applicability review.