{"id":416033,"date":"2020-07-14T10:23:46","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T08:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=416033"},"modified":"2020-07-14T10:23:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T08:23:46","slug":"south-africa-takes-steps-to-regulate-bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/416033\/south-africa-takes-steps-to-regulate-bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa takes steps to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In June, minister of Finance Tito Mboweni published proposed amendments to the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) for public comment.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed amendments aim to align FICA with the current International Standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as well as with recent legislative amendments, says Seshree Govender, a senior associate at law firm Webber Wentzel.<\/p>\n<p>This will include new rules around crypto-asset service providers or &#8216;CASPs&#8217;, including further responsibilities around which information they have to maintain and conducting due diligence on customers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The list of CASPs is extremely wide and will cover the majority of CASP businesses in South Africa, including services providers operating outside the country,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The effect will be that all these businesses will be regarded as &#8216;accountable institutions&#8217; and will be required to comply with the various regulatory requirements and obligations imposed on accountable institutions by FICA&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Govender said that these requirements will include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Registering as an &#8216;accountable institution&#8217; with the FIC;<\/li>\n<li>Conducting due diligence\/KYC on all customers in accordance with a risk-based approach; and<\/li>\n<li>Developing, implementing and maintaining a risk management and compliance programme (RMCP).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Govender said that the list of CASPs that will be included in the FICA include those that allow for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exchanging a crypto asset for a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fiat_money\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fiat currency<\/a><\/strong> or vice versa;<\/li>\n<li>Exchanging one form of crypto asset for another;<\/li>\n<li>Conducting a transaction that moves a crypto asset from one crypto asset address or account to another;<\/li>\n<li>Safekeeping or administration of a crypto asset or an instrument enabling control over a crypto asset; and<\/li>\n<li>Participation in and provision of financial services related to an issuer\u2019s offer or sale of a crypto asset.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>An accountable institution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the key proposed changes is that CASPs register as an &#8216;accountable institution&#8217; with the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC).<\/p>\n<p>As part of this process, they will have to abide by all of the FIC\u2019s legislative requirements. These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Conducting customer identification and verification;<\/li>\n<li>Conducting customer due diligence;<\/li>\n<li>Keeping records;<\/li>\n<li>Monitoring for suspicious and unusual activity on an ongoing basis;<\/li>\n<li>Reporting to the FIC any suspicious and unusual transactions;<\/li>\n<li>Reporting cash transactions of R25,000.00 and above (or the applicable threshold at any given time);<\/li>\n<li>Reporting in respect of control of property that might be linked to terrorist activity or terrorist organisations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As with other financial institutions, these CASPs will also have to do risk assessments on customers and maintain information both on account holders and where the money is heading (beneficiaries).<\/p>\n<p>The FIC will have the power to impose administrative penalties where there is non-compliance.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/415135\/you-can-now-get-a-virtual-mastercard-credit-card-in-south-africa-heres-how-it-works\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">You can now get a virtual Mastercard credit card in South Africa \u2013 here\u2019s how it works<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In June, minister of Finance Tito Mboweni published proposed amendments to the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) for public comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":194070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-416033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416033"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416049,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416033\/revisions\/416049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}