FATF Asks Qatar to Impose Strict Crypto Regulations
The Financial Action Task Force or FATF has been making rounds among various countries recently calling for a crackdown on crypto. The enterprise is working with the government of Qatar at present.
The focus of the FATF with the government of Qatar is to introduce better laws and regulations for understanding the complex forms of financial crimes. FATF has imposed some sanctions on the Central Bank of Qatar or QCB to implement the required financial reforms as soon as possible.
The main target of these financial regulatory reforms is the virtual asset services providers. The government of Qatar is now under obligation to put a halt to the virtual asset service providers. FATF has published a new report recently
This report has emphasized that the regulators in Qatar pay greater attention to stopping the financial crime activities happening within the region. However, the focus of these sanctions is imposed on the virtual asset market and services providers. It is worth mentioning that FATF is the nominated money laundering and terror finance watchdog.
FATF Report Connects Digital Currencies with Financial Crimes in its Latest Report
The latest report published by FATF has painted cryptocurrencies as a complex form of money and maintained that such money forms are often used in financial crimes. The organization has noted that virtual currencies are usually utilized by criminals to make terror finance aids and perform money laundering.
FATF also posted a link to the MENAFATF mutual report on social media. In 2019, the Financial Centre Regulatory Authority of Qatar or QFCRA declared that virtual currencies will not be processed through or by the Financial Center of Qatar.
QFCRA also announced penalties on any firms that were found in violation of these financial reforms. It means that any firms from the FQC were prohibited from working with a crypto exchange or other types of virtual asset enterprises.
FATF has maintained that the measures adopted by QFCRA are positive and ensure sustained growth. The restricting laws on the crypto sector are touted by FATF as successfully gathering information from unified registrars and data consolidation of its citizens.
However, FATF officials retained that Qatari officials must continue in their efforts. The report talked about a need for better controls and more updated information collection measures.
FATF has maintained that Qatar authorities have not shown the best results to detect money laundering cases. The institution maintained that Qatari officials are practicing a relaxed approach when it comes to investigating the financial crimes under their jurisdiction.
However, Qatar has imposed a ban on virtual asset providers since 2019 the QCB is also working on a new CBDC pilot. QCB officials have reported that the CBDC project is now in the final stages of completion in 2022.
QCB governor Shiekh Bandar Bin Mohammad told the media last year that the Central Banking enterprise was working on investigating the impact of CBDC issuance.
It is worth noting that many countries around the world are carrying out extensive research on the advantages and drawbacks of a CBDC launch on local and international economic and financial development.
At the same time, the QCB has also reported looking for the best platform and technological base to issue the first-ever CBDC project in the country on a public scale. Thus far, the official launch date of the Qatari CBDC has not been made official.
