About 15 countries are collaborating on a system to collect and share identifying data about individuals trading cryptocurrencies, Nikkei Asian Review reports.
The news follows other reports this week that Japan’s Ministry of Finance and Financial Services Agency (FSA) have offered to build a regulated global network for cryptocurrency transfers and trades similar to SWIFT.
Development of that network is reportedly being monitored by, “A team related to the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF).”
The FATF is a powerful intergovernmental policy-making body tasked with coordinating global efforts to combat money laundering, terrorist finance and “other threats to the integrity of the global financial system.”
According to the FATF website, “The FATF currently comprises 37 member jurisdictions and 2 regional organisations, representing most major financial centres in all parts of the globe.”
Countries that refuse to implement FATF recommendations risk being sanctioned, and G-20 finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Japan in all agreed to start licensing crypto exchanges in their jurisdictions and engaging in comprehensive oversight.
Regarding the monitoring system, the NAR writes, “The goal to draw up detailed measures by 2020, and to have the system up and running a few years later.”
It is unclear whether the SWIFT-style system and the monitoring system are the same though that is likely the case.
About 15 countries, including G-7 members, Australia and Singapore, are said to be participating in the development of the system.
In 2017, Japan became one of the first countries in the world to regulate its crypto sector, but variable regulation across the globe continues to allow interested many opportunities to conduct “regulatory arbitrage” (the skirting of money-laundering and reporting controls).