All across the globe, regulators have been looking up to see digital currency regulations this year and now the Bahamas are finally caught up.
The Central Bank of the Bahamas has published a regulatory framework in preparations in order to implement digital currency based assets into its financial services industry.
As mentioned by The Next Web, the framework aims to address many of the regulatory challenges that the Central Bank is currently associated with and the use of digital currencies such as market volatility, tax evasion, fraudulent Initial Coin Offerings and anti-money laundering policies.
The Central Bank believes the digital currency space outlook on international regulation is too fragmented which makes it hard to “manage emerging risks in the fintech arena”.
With this, the Central Bank is searching for a way to integrate a few amendments to regulations recommended by the likes of the International Monetary Fund.
For those of you who don’t know, the International Monetary Fund is an organisation of over 185 countries which all work together to foster worldwide monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote more employment and better growth in the economy to reduce poverty all across the globe
These amendments will look to require any business operating in, or from the Bahamas in order to:
“Demonstrate safe and sound business practices; show that they have systems in place to measure, monitor, and adequately control the market and other risks; and ensure that they have in place auditable policies, practices and procedures to prevent the use of their services for criminal purposes.”
It’s worth noting that anti-money laundering policies will also have to be put in place.
By chance, this news comes during the same time that Thai authorities revealed they would be regulating ICOs through a dedicated portal designed to improve security, reducing fraud and aiding to facilitate due diligence.
This year, regulators in Thailand have been cracking down hard on cryptocurrencies and if their latest plan is pulled off then it tightens their grip on the industry. The Thai Securities and Exchange Commision is looking to prepare its first regulated Initial Coin Offering portal later this month.
It seems that many ICOs will be vetted on a case by case theory and will be added to the portal after the launch but there is no set date as of yet.
What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think down below in the comments!
