The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has slammed Qatar Central Bank (QCB) for making little effort to enforce its own regulations prohibiting virtual asset service providers.
In a report published on May 31, the global money-laundering and terrorist financing watchdogย highlighted that Qatar needs to advance its capabilities to effectively combat evolving forms of criminal activity, including sanctioning virtual asset service providers.
โIt needs to improve understanding of more complex forms of money laundering and terrorist financing,โ it stated.
In case you missed, find out more about the effectiveness of Qatar’s measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in the FATF-MENAFATF mutual evaluation report โก๏ธhttps://t.co/CwEJTZnb0M#moneylaundering #terroristfinancing #aml #cft #FollowTheMoney pic.twitter.com/IFiaCRxWju
โ FATF (@FATFNews) June 1, 2023
It was only in December 2019 that Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFCRA) announced that virtual asset services may not be conducted in or from the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC).
The regulatory authority warned at the time that penalties will be imposed in accordance with the QFCRAโs rights and obligations to any firm that provides or facilitates the provision or exchange of crypto assets.
According to FATFโs recent report, while Qatar has made โpositive and sustained progressโ in gathering beneficial ownership information for its nearly completed unified register โ a consolidation of data of its citizens โ there is still more work to be done:
โThere are still not sufficient controls to ensure that all information collected remains accurate and up-to-date.โ
Qatarโs authorities were urged to improve their investigative efforts towards money laundering, as it was alleged its โsophisticated analysis capabilitiesโ to identify instances of money laundering are not being fully utilized.
Related: UK financial watchdog to crypto industry: โLetโs work togetherโ
While Qatar has banned virtual asset service providers, it has revealed that it is actively exploring potential use cases for implementing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
It was previously reported in June 2022 that Qatar Central Bank (QCB) is in the โfoundation stageโ of issuing a CBDC.
The QCB governor Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al Thani revealed at the time that the central bank was โevaluating the pros and consโ of CBDCs and working out the right technology and platform.
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