The Financial Superintendence of Colombia presented an initiative that aims to clarify how virtual asset service providers (VASPs), and banks will interact in the future. This document contains key concepts as well as a list of prerequisites banks must verify before they accept virtual asset service providers to their customers.
Latam is seeing regulation as a priority, with cryptocurrency adoption growing at a rapid pace. The Financial Superintendence Colombia has created a document to establish standards regarding cryptocurrency exchanges and custody providers to be serviced by banks. This project defines key concepts like virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and virtual assets within the scope of regulation.
It also stipulates that virtual asset service providers must be connected to UIAF, Colombia’s financial intelligence office, and have a plan to address money laundering and terrorism financing attempts.
Indirectly, the project refers to compliance with the Financial Action Task Force’s travel rule. These VASPs must be verified by banks:
The technical and operational capability to monitor transactions using virtual assets and to obtain, preserve, and transmit information about the originator and beneficiary of each transaction.
Additional Requirements
According to the proposal, VASPs must be able to provide clear information to customers about their services and the risks involved, the costs associated with them, and any virtual assets they have on their platforms.
VASPs will also have a plan to deal with operational and cybersecurity-related risks to handle possible hacks or platform problems that might affect how their services are delivered to their customers. Banks will be required to seperate their responsibilities and those of VASPs. Customers will be informed that they are solely responsible for VASP-related issues.
It also imposes restrictions on investments. It says:
Supervised entities that are authorized to take resources via deposit products or funds have to ensure that operations of withdrawal and deposit of resources in financial products or funds under the VASP’s name only occur through non-face–to-face channels.
The proposal is still being discussed. Financial Superintendence will be receiving suggestions until August 12.
