The Finnish Minister of Finance announced that the head of state approved the Act on Providers of Virtual Currency. And the local financial regulator, the Financial Supervision Authority (Fin-FSA), clarified that the law will take effect on May 1.
As defined by the document, Fin-FSA will become the registering and supervising authority for cryptocurrency providers.
Representatives of Fin-FSA noted that registration is necessary for “ virtual currency exchanges ”, “purse providers for storage” and “virtual currency issuers”. These categories of companies must comply with legal requirements.
For example, they must be reliable and be able to store and protect users' funds. They are also required to separate customer funds from their own and comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorist financing (CFT) laws.
Registration does not entitle to work in other countries
The document has transitional provisions that allow existing cryptoservice providers to continue working in the country without registration until November 1 of the current year.
Fin-FSA notes that the rules introduced are based on changes to the EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive of May 2018.
Registration with Fin-FSA does not give cryptocurrency operators the right to operate in other EU countries, since each country has its own rules regarding cryptocurrencies.
Publication date 04/29/2019
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