The Swiss Monetary Authority publishes a guide to the regulation of blockchain services. Exchanges and wallets are subject to compliance.

According to foreign media, Swiss regulators issued guidance on the regulatory requirements for financial service providers to provide blockchain payment services under the supervision of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

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The Swiss Financial Market Regulatory Authority (FINMA) issued a guide earlier today to guide the regulatory requirements for financial service providers under FINMA to pay for payments on the blockchain. The Virtual Asset Service Provider Guide focuses on blockchain service providers such as exchanges, wallet providers, and trading platforms. It requires existing anti-money laundering rules to apply to such service providers as well.

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FINMA pointed out that blockchain-based business models cannot be allowed to circumvent existing regulatory frameworks. This applies in particular to the rules against money laundering and terrorist financing, in which the inherent anonymity of the blockchain increases the risk. Therefore, Switzerland has always applied the Anti-Money Laundering Law to blockchain service providers.

For example, blockchain service providers have an obligation to verify the identity of the customer, establish a useful owner's identity, and monitor the business relationship based on a risk-based approach. If there is a reasonable reason to suspect money laundering, then the Swiss Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS) report.

Article 10 of AMLO-FINMA requires the information of the customer and the beneficiary to be sent together with the payment order. The financial intermediary receiving the information then has the opportunity to check the sender's name against the sanctions list. It can also check if the beneficiary's information is correct or whether it should be refunded if there is a discrepancy.

FINMA stated that the clause must be interpreted in a technology-independent manner and therefore also applicable to services based on blockchain technology. Information does not need to be transmitted on the blockchain. Transmission can be done through other communication channels. The purpose of this provision is particularly relevant to the blockchain. The FATF also wants to transfer information about customers and beneficiaries through token transfers in the same way as bank transfers.

FINMA explained that there is currently no system on the blockchain that can reliably transmit identity data for payment transactions. So far, bilateral agreements between individual service providers have not existed. In order for such systems or such agreements to meet the requirements of Article 10 of AMLO-FINMA in the future, they will have to involve only service providers that are subject to appropriate anti-money laundering supervision.

Unlike the FATF standard, AMLO-FINMA Article 10 does not provide any exemptions for payments involving unregulated wallet providers. This exemption will benefit unsupervised service providers and will result in the unsupervised provider being unable to prevent problematic payments from being executed.

As long as the FINMA-regulated organization is unable to send and receive the information required to pay for the transaction, such transactions are only allowed to be carried out between external wallets belonging to the institution's own customers. Proper technical means must be used to prove their ownership of the external wallet. Allow transactions between customers in the same organization. For customer relationships, if the supervisory authority first verifies the identity of the third party, establishes the identity of the beneficial owner, and uses appropriate technical means to prove the ownership of the external wallet by the third party, then only the external wallet from (or to) the third party will be run. Transfer.

If the customer is redeeming (French-Virtual Currency, Virtual Currency-French, Virtual Currency-Virtual Currency) and the transaction involves an external wallet, then the appropriate technical means must be used to prove the customer's ownership of the external wallet. If there is no such proof, the payment transaction rules apply.

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