Ukraine Passes Anti-Money Laundering Law based on FATF

The Government of Ukraine has passed the final version of a money laundering law based on the guidelines provided by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The law will handle virtual assets and virtual asset service providers (VASPs). 

The Rada, Ukraine’s legislative body published the final version of the law on December 6 that counts virtual assets as a symbol of wealth while also considering its potential use in financial crimes like money laundering, frauds, terrorist financing, tax evasion, etc. 

The new law contains guidelines on the ways the government intends to monitor and control the trading of cryptocurrencies. The guidelines center on unique crypto transactions worth less than 30,000 hryvni ($1300) from which the government will only collect the public key of the sender for the purpose of financial monitoring. 

If the transaction exceeds that amount, verification will be applied to both the sender and the receiver. The verification process will include identity verification as well as the verification of the nature and business of the relationship. 

For virtual asset service providers, the limit is 40,000 hryvni ($1600). In which case, the VASPs should present information to the authorities whenever such traders are registered in the jurisdiction that do not comply with anti-money laundering regulations. 

Binance, a major global crypto exchange, is reportedly collaborating with Ukrainian officials to build cryptocurrency-related legislation in the country. The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and Binance signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly work on the legal status of cryptocurrencies. The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), said in November that in order to bring positive growth in the economy and to attract additional investments, legalization of cryptocurrencies and the adoption of progressive legislation can play a key role. 

The Ministry and Binance intend to form a working group as part of the agreement which will be focused on the strategy of blockchain implementations as well as the production of “new virtual assets and virtual currencies market in Ukraine.”