New EU AML Rules May Seek KYC Checks For Commercial Bitcoin Payments Over €1000
Lawmakers on two key committees in the European Parliament have voted in favor of imposing limits on payments by unverified bitcoin and crypto users.
- The regulation aims to establish the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) with supervisory and investigative powers to ensure compliance with AML/CFT requirements in all 27 member states.
- According to the adopted texts, entities, such as banks, assets and crypto assets managers, real and virtual estate agents and high-level professional football clubs, will be required to verify their customers’ identity, what they own and who controls the company.
- Business relations with unlicensed entities would be prohibited.
- Established credit and financial institutions would also have to apply due diligence measures when handling bitcoin and crypto transactions worth more than €1,000 ($1,080).
- For commercial bitcoin and crypto payments, there would be a restriction on transactions of more than €1,000 in value stemming from non-custodial wallets unless the wallet's owner is identified.
- Bitcoin transactions between private individuals would remain unaffected.
- The regulation also hopes to close a regulatory gap, obliging DAOs, NFT and DeFi platforms to conduct due diligence checks on all their customers and report suspicious transactions to the authorities, in the same way banks, financial institutions or real estate agents do.
- The European Parliament will start negotiations on this AML/CFT package after a confirmation during a plenary session in April.
