FATF Report: US Is Not Focusing Enough on Crypto Financial Risk

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has reevaluated the United States on its compliance with global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) regulations. According to the report published on March 31, the U.S. is only “largely compliant” with FATF regulations on cryptocurrencies and virtual assets.

The assessment considered the degree of compliance of the national legislation to recommendations issued by FATF, an international regulatory standard body. Recommendation 15, dealing specifically with cryptocurrencies, is among the most discussed issues in the report.

Since the last assessment in 2016, the FATF rating of the U.S. on this matter has not changed. However, FATF’s own guidelines for cryptocurrencies were amended significantly in October 2019, in what is commonly known as the FATF Travel Rule.

Thus the assessment reflects the change in methodology, which involves a deeper scrutiny than earlier.

U.S. regulation is non-specific, but it mostly works

The agency commended the increased awareness of the risks shown by U.S. regulators, citing the creation of several task forces and reports such as the “2018 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment.”

Source: cointelegraph.com