Banco de Portugal (the Portuguese Central Bank) will assume the powers of supervision of entities that exercise services for the exchange, transfer or custody of virtual assets, with respect to compliance with the preventive rules on money laundering and terrorism financing, with the entry into force of the Law transposing the most recent European Directive on this matter.
Law No. 58/2020, of 31 August, transposing Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 30 May 2018, amending Directive (EU) was published in Diário da República) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing and Directive (EU) 2018/1673 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on combating money laundering through criminal law, amending several laws, including Law No. 83/2017, of 18 August, which establishes preventive and repressive measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (BC / FT ).
As a result of such changes, Law No. 83/2017, of 18 August, now includes in the list of entities required to comply with the preventive rules of BC / FT, entities that exercise any of the following activities with virtual assets:
- Exchange services between virtual assets and fiat currencies or between one or more virtual assets;
- Virtual asset transfer services;
- Guarding or guarding services and administration of virtual assets or instruments that allow controlling, holding, storing or transferring these assets, including private cryptographic keys.
In accordance with the new regime, Banco de Portugal will be the authority responsible either for registering the entities that carry out those activities with virtual assets, or for verifying the compliance, by these entities, with the legal and regulatory provisions applicable in terms of BC prevention. / FT. It is clarified, however, that in relation to such entities, the competence of Banco de Portugal is limited to the prevention of BC / FT, not extending to other domains, of a prudential, behavioral or other nature.
Source: Banco de Portugal
Miguel Pinto-Correia holds a Master Degree in International Economics and European Studies from ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics & Management and a Bachelor Degree in Economics from Nova School of Business and Economics. He is a permanent member of the Order of the Economists (Ordem dos Economistas)… Read more
