In a first of its kind, a special Cabinet of the Irish government has sanctioned a special bill which is a directive for Anti-Money Laundering that would give permission to the European Union to operate for safety measures.
This special directive which came into effect early July, last year, sets a new law for the European Union financial regulators to exercise strict control on the usage of digital currencies as a means to protect Irish people against money laundering and criminal activities like terrorism funding.
This special directive created to tackle crimes like anti-money laundering will be strictly exercised in various crypto-based platforms and platforms provided by wallet services. This would result in putting an end to the bank having savings accounts secretly maintained and would improve the cross flow of information among European Union authorities. The member states of the EU have been issued ultimatums to incorporate this directive in their respective legal system by Jan’20.
In a press meet, Charlie Flanagan, Minister of Justice stated that in addition to the acknowledgment of the directive issued by EU, the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill of 2019 for Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing would also take measures to ensure that it’s being followed stringently and having a hawk eye especially on the operation of virtual currencies. These are primarily used for antisocial activities like terrorist financing by using prepaid cards.
The fact is that laundering money is a criminal offense which leads to the smooth functioning of criminals and terrorists, destroying innocent lives. Off late, Criminals have resorted to making use of EU’s open borders for their operation and this it is important to bring in wide EU measures for upholding law and order in the state. Since its amendment, Ireland firmly supports the special provision in the directive for EU money laundering which is the fifth in line.
Once the bill is passed, every financial bodies and institution would have to operate strictly with due diligence while dealing with new clients and would have to follow strict procedures before opening any deposits accounts and would be prohibited from an opening of anonymous deposit boxes if found suspicious. In addition to that, the bill would authorize the Garda and the Criminal Assets Bureau to reach out randomly to any bank records in the systematic course of investigations for money laundering.
Last month, the Blockchain Observatory for European Union and Forum created a special case of the online versions of the national cryptocurrencies. Creation of digital version of domestic cryptocurrencies means that they would be now a core part of all the contracts. This would result in unlocking of various innovations and developments of the local blockchain eventually leading to private remittance, including direct open transactions using any platform of cryptocurrency instead of using a proxy one.
Earlier last month, Revolut which is a crypto-based finance and technology start-up firm was successful in securing a banking license for their operation in EU, taking help from the Bank of Lithuania. Currently, Revolut has users in countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Poland. With this step, the users would be getting authentic current accounts and a non- financed debit card. In addition to this, users’ deposit accounts will also have funds to the extent of €100,000 as per the European Deposit Insurance Scheme.