Today, June 29th, the European Banking Authority officially closed their consultation on their draft amending risk-based supervision guidelines in relation to AML/CFT supervisors of CASPs under the AML Directive.
The Digital Currencies Governance Group welcomes the EBA’s proposals to include CASPs in the supervision guidelines under the AMLD in order to adequately reflect the realities of the space. We welcome increased technical expertise of supervisory staff, as well as the implementation of Blockchain analytics and DLT to facilitate competent authorities supervisory obligations. It is also important to apply an oversight approach over CASPs that acknowledges the specificities of the sector and allows for proportionate treatment with other obliged entities. We encourage close cooperation between competent authorities and reputable third party providers of blockchain analytics for the CASP compliance obligations in correspondent relationships risk assessment, to alleviate a potentially significant administrative burden on exchanges and other crypto asset service providers. Finally, we have asked for further clarity of what typology of transactions would be considered for supervisory assessment, location requirements, and the extent of applicable internal governance guidelines that will be enforced on CASPs until the MiCA guidelines are issued.
We look forward to providing evidence on the second consultation from the EBA later this summer on their amended guidelines concerning the identification and prevention of ML/TF risks, in order to ensure CASPs are not put in a disadvantage to other obliged entities, and advocate for proportionality of treatment.