In the latest bid to comply with Financial Action Task Force compliance, Thailand considers Anit Money Laundering, AML inclusion for cryptocurrency.
This is in lieu of Thai measures to work against money laundering as have been taken by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in the past.
Thailand is also aware of the potential damage that cryptocurrency can cause a country’s economy, and hence, the financial regulators are looking for measures to curb the threat even before it makes an appearance.
It makes no surprise to see Thailand is one of the countries taking a leading step in implementing the FATF regulatory principles about cryptocurrency. Thailand is one of the FATF members and thus provides a good example to other countries by implementing laws itself.
AML inclusion for cryptocurrency in Thailand
The Bangkok Post had a session with Preecha Charoensahayanon, Police Major General, as well as the secretary-general of the Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo), stated that they know that money laundering will be a serious problem with cryptocurrency in the future, even if now the coast seems clear.
According to him, it is relatively easy to shadow the source from where one gets their stuff from. Cryptocurrency is immutable- that being said- it is also very much untraceable but the privacy allotted to users is also something that needs to be kept an eye on.
The Anti-Money Laundering Act incorporated into the country’s laws seems to Preecha Charoensahayanon as the most effective way of dealing with money laundering.
This way, Amlo will be aware of the exchanges when they’re made over the network as the data will be sent to Amlo spontaneously. The FATF wants to make the cryptocurrency ecosystem as hospitable as it can be while trying to lure out potential loopholes.
The ‘Virtual Asset Service Providers’ (VASPs) should hold all the accurate data concerning the sender and the receiver even after the transactions are done. This data would then be sent to the appropriate authorities for inspection — appropriate authorities as to the FATF itself and Amlo.
