How does China act as the rotating chairman of FATF and how will it promote global cryptocurrency regulation?

On June 24, at the briefing of Chinese and foreign media held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, mentioned an international anti-money laundering anti-terrorism financing organization: the International Financial Task Force, and the People's Bank of China will take over the working group on behalf of China. The rotating chairman.

Chen Yulu said: "We also expect the Osaka Summit to continue to affirm the important role of the Financial Action Task Force in anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing, and will work with all parties to promote international cooperation in anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing."

The “Finance Special Action Group” mentioned by Chen Yulu, the FATF, is one of the most authoritative and influential international anti-money laundering organizations in the world. The FATF has been identified as the global standard setter for combating terrorist financing.

From July 1, 2019, Liu Xiangmin, the director of the Legal Department of the People's Bank of China, will replace Marshall Billingslea, the rotating chairman of the United States.

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During the G20, the FATF submitted a “Guide to the Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) Methodology Framework” to national representatives to focus on combating money laundering and terrorist financing using cryptocurrencies.

China holds the rotating chairman

On June 24, at the briefing of the Chinese and foreign media held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said that the People's Bank of China would take over the rotating chairman of the Financial Action Task Force on behalf of China.

“We will work with members to conduct a strategic review of the work of the Financial Action Task Force, sort out the challenges and clarify the strategies. We also look forward to the Osaka Summit to continue to affirm the Financial Action Task Force on anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing. The important role will be to promote international cooperation in anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing with all parties," Chen Yulu said.

As early as June 21, the official website of the FATF announced that as a Chinese representative, Liu Xiangmin will indirectly serve as the chairman of the FATF from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. At the latest G20 ministerial meeting, he agreed to The term of office of the FATF Chairman and Vice Chairman is extended to two years.

According to the announcement, during his tenure as FATF chairman, Liu Xiangmin was mainly responsible for the strategic review of the FATF, and was also responsible for countering the risk of countering illegal money laundering and terrorist financing under emerging technologies.

At the same time, as a representative of China, Liu Xiangmin will also give priority to promoting work in the jurisdiction to promote the effective promotion of anti-money laundering actions by the national authorities (China).

Prior to his appointment as FATF Chairman, Liu Xiangmin served as Vice Chairman of the FATF and Director General of the Legal Department of the People's Bank of China. During his time, he participated in the formulation of laws, regulations and policies on China's financial sector and was rich in the intersection of financial law and financial markets. experience of.

Prior to this, Liu Xiangmin served as the director of the China Anti-Money Laundering Bureau. He was responsible for formulating and implementing China's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism policies and regulations. In addition, he also served as the head of the FATF China delegation.

The FATF, the full name of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, was the Financial Action Task Force, which was established at the G7 Summit in Paris in 1989 to address the growing problem of terrorist financing and illegal money laundering around the world.

Its founding members are composed of seven countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy and Canada. It has grown into 36 member jurisdictions including China and two regional organizations.

The FATF is one of the most authoritative and influential international anti-money laundering organizations in the world. According to Resolution 2462 (2019) adopted by the UN Security Council, the FATF has been identified as a global standard setter for combating terrorist financing.

Each year, the FATF specifically evaluates anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing standards in a jurisdiction. Take China as an example. In 2004, China Anti-Money Laundering Testing and Analysis Center was first established and is also one of the FATF regional organizations.

In 2005, China became an FATF observer and became a full member of the FATF in 2007. Since then, the Chinese side has gradually improved the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing system, and submitted 8 improvement reports to the FATF before and after, and became the 13th member to reach the FATF third round of mutual evaluation standards in 2012.

In September 2017, the People's Bank of China issued the "Opinions on Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing, and Anti-tax Evasion Supervision System."

On October 10, 2018, the China Anti-Money Laundering Bureau formulated the "Administrative Measures on Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing of Internet Financial Institutions (Trial)", which will be implemented on January 1, 2019.

Combating the financing of terrorism

A week ago, the Spanish National Police, in conjunction with the European Union Interpol, used more than 350 police officers and three European anti-terrorist centre experts to smash a fund for the Syrian Qaeda (Al-Qaida) in cities such as Madrid and Valencia. Human criminal gang.

The criminal gang consists of a family that has obtained false invoices through a number of unscrupulous companies that have been in business for many years, implemented tax fraud and money laundering offences, and sent the proceeds to Syria through Hawala, an underground foreign exchange system originating in southern Arabia. To support the local extreme terrorism Qaeda organization.

Terrorist organizations such as Qaeda, ISIS, and ISIL have been the focus of the FATF. These terrorist core groups in Iraq and Syria use their affiliates or branches around the world to finance terrorist organizations.

At the same time, FATF cooperates with its 36 member jurisdictions, two regional organizations, and financial and counter-terrorism agencies of various countries to curb and combat terrorist financing including ISIS and ISIL.

As early as 2001, the FATF focused on ISIS, ISIL, and Qaeda, and set a standard for combating terrorist financing.

With the continuous advancement of Internet technology, the way of financing terrorists has also evolved, and the FATF's anti-terrorism financing standards have also been revised.

In August 2015, a 17-year-old boy named Ali Shukri Amin in Virginia, USA, was convicted by the US Department of Justice for conspiring to provide material and resource support to ISIL, and was sentenced to 136 months in prison.

Amin acknowledged in the plea agreement that it would raise bitcoin for ISIL online via Twitter and how to establish a secure donation system or fund for ISIL.

In the same year, this case of terrorist financing in bitcoin was first proposed by the FATF: “Bitcoin cryptocurrency represents a huge opportunity for financial innovation. This technology that allows anonymous cross-border funds transfer has attracted the attention of criminal groups. ""

In November 2018, the 27-year-old woman, Zoobia Shahnaz, pleaded guilty in the US District Court, acknowledging that she had provided financial support to ISIS. According to the lawsuit filed by the Eastern District Justice Department of New York, from March to July 2017, Shahnaz applied for more than a dozen credit cards and defrauded about $22,500 in loans, together with the previously purchased cryptocurrency worth about $62,000. The $150,000 raised was transferred to the ISIS front line.

In the month before the incident, the FATF revised the vocabulary of combating terrorism financing, and added “virtual assets” and “virtual asset service providers” to clarify that virtual asset service providers are subject to anti-money laundering/counter-terrorism financing. Regulated and subject to effective monitoring or surveillance systems.

On June 21, 2019, the FATF issued a response to the Virtual Asset and Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASPs) Methodological Framework.

The framework defines the final guidance for each member's cryptocurrency regulation. The core point is that in order to deal with illegal money laundering in the global cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency providers must adopt the real name KYC for the user – must know the true identity of the customer .

The FATF believes that the threat of criminal and terrorist misuse of virtual assets is a serious and pressing issue, and it is hoped that law enforcement agencies in all countries will act quickly on the activities of crypto-asset service providers to implement FATF recommendations.

Cryptographic currency or will usher in global simultaneous regulation

According to the statistics of the International Monetary Fund, the total size of world money laundering in 1998 was between US$590 billion and US$1.5 trillion, accounting for 2% to 5% of the world's gross domestic product, roughly equivalent to the economic output of the Spanish economy.

According to statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in 2009, funds derived from crime accounted for 3.6% of global GDP, of which 2.7% (or $1.6 trillion) were washed away by illegal money laundering.

According to FinCEN (the US online financial crime regulator), the agency has received more than 47,000 suspicious activity reports (SARs) since 2013, and bitcoin or virtual currency is increasingly mentioned in the report.

In 2016, cracking down on the use of bitcoin for illegal money laundering and terrorist financing became an important issue for the FATF.

It is worth mentioning that the anti-terrorism financing and anti-money laundering regulatory framework proposed or formulated by the FATF is only instructive for each jurisdiction. The FATF does not participate in specific law enforcement matters, investigations or prosecutions.

The Virtual Asset and Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASPs) Methodological Framework has won the support of central bank representatives.

Bibhu Prasad Kanungo, deputy governor of the Bank of India, said: "At the international level, although different countries have not unified the regulatory response to cryptocurrencies, it is widely believed that cryptocurrencies will seriously undermine the anti-money laundering and FATF framework, which is market integrity and capital. Control has an adverse effect, and if it exceeds the critical mass, it will also jeopardize financial stability."

Japanese parliamentarian Takeo Hiroshi said: "The FATF's regulatory standards for blockchain and cryptocurrency have set high expectations among legislators. Of particular interest is its long-term impact on financial security issues."

Within the framework of the new FATF, combating money laundering and terrorist financing is not just between 36 members and two regional organizations. In the coming year, in some countries, cryptocurrency regulations may no longer be blank.

The latest G20 conference results announced by the FATF show that in order to further effectively combat global money laundering and terrorist financing, the FATF will not limit membership and conduct a strategic review of its members' core work for 12 months in June 2020.

Marshall Billingslea, the former chairman of the FATF, said that countries that fail to meet the expected compliance plan will face costly operational risks – possibly added to the “limits to the FATF blacklist that restricts access to the global financial system”.

Wen Hao Wu Salt

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