Cyprus, one of the most crypto-friendly jurisdictions in Europe, may tighten its industry’s regulations to amend the current Prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering Law.
The ministry has presented its package of amendments to the Committee on Legal Affairs of the Parliament. It seeks to align Cyprus with international standards for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), as well as the November 2022 recommendations of the MONEYVAL report.
Under the amendments, every service provider dealing with crypto assets must register with the financial regulator, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). The penalties for noncompliance range from fines of up to €350,000 to imprisonment of up to five years or a combination of both.
The amendments reportedly elicited some reservations from the Cyprus Bar Association, particularly regarding the requirement that crypto service providers with operating licenses from other European countries still register with the CySEC. The CySEC itself incorporated this provision into the amendments.
There were no substantial difficulties in registering their businesses in Cyprus. The CySEC issued a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) registration to crypto-friendly brokerage firm eToro in September, following ByBit, which received the same license in June.
In July, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, decided to deregister from the Cyprus market, where it had been operating under increasing regulatory pressure in recent months. The company expressed a desire to concentrate on broader registered EU markets.