On April 21, the Dutch Upper House passed the Implementation Act in order to transpose the fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) to comply with the European regulations and standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Registration obligation by May 18th
Last week, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) enhanced this law and required crypto service providers to register with DNB as soon as possible before the deadline. 1
Who is concerned?
The Act puts two kinds of crypto-related activities under the scope, including natural persons, legal persons or companies who offer the services below professionally or commercially in or from the Netherlands:
- Services for the exchange between cryptos and fiat currencies (crypto-to-crypto not included);
- Crypto wallets (defined as services to secure private cryptographic keys on behalf of their clients to hold, store and transfer virtual currencies). 2
If these firms don’t register, they will have to stop operations immediately, “until the successful completion of the registration application” 3. If they still remain active after the deadline without the registration, it will impact their future registration application; they will also “be in violation” and DNB can “take enforcement action” 4.
Besides, DNB will assess the related companies’ board members and some shareholders with qualifying holdings (a direct or indirect holding representing 10% or more of the capital or of any class of voting rights, or having comparable control on the management or operations). They must submit the proof that they design the effective processes to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, and they manage adequately these processes. 5
What to do to be compliant?
1. Apply for registration
The request for registration to DNB should be made via the Digital Supervision Desk .
2. Provide organisation details
Financial institutions can verify contact, board members details and outsourcing partners.
3. Set up AML/CTF internal controls
One of the success factors for registration applications is to design an effective AML & CTF policy, which demonstrates the company’s willingness and capability to control the risks.
In addition, once a company is registered and its board members as well as compliance key employees have been assessed, DNB will supervise that it complies with the rules on money laundering and terrorist financing, including those related to the integrity risk analysis, sound and ethical business operations, customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, the duty to report unusual transactions and sanctions legislation. 6
From this perspective, choosing a powerful and trustworthy tool for crypto AML is essential to make sure that your business fulfils the compliance requirements.
This is where Scorechain Risk-AML software can help. As a market leader, many companies have chosen Scorechain as their compliance and transaction monitoring solution.
The company provides comprehensive monitoring tools that cryptocurrency service providers need to comply with any upcoming regulations. Basically it helps cryptocurrency businesses to implement their compliance policy and enhance due diligence controls for transaction monitoring and suspicious activities reporting.
With a transparent risk-assessment methodology, a powerful scoring system, full customization and reporting features, Scorechain Analytics is trusted by worldwide customers from 29 countries, including major cryptocurrency businesses (exchange, wallet, payment processor, trading, etc.), financial players with crypto trading/custody branches and/or which onboard crypto clients, audit & law firms working with crypto businesses, law enforcement agencies and private individuals for forensics.
Are you a cryptocurrency service provider operating and targeting the Netherlands? Are you looking for a reliable AML solution to fulfill compliance requirements as soon as possible? Contact us for more information as soon as possible: contact@scorechain.com. We will be glad to guide you in the process.
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Reference:
- https://www.coindesk.com/dutch-central-bank-to-crypto-firms-register-in-2-weeks-or-shut-down
- https://www.toezicht.dnb.nl/2/50-237993.jsp
- https://www.dnb.nl/en/news/news-and-archive/nieuws-2020/dnb388451.jsp
- https://www.dnb.nl/nieuws/dnb-nieuwsbrieven/nieuwsbrief-cryptodienstverleners/nieuwsbrief-aanbieders-van-cryptodiensten-mei-2020/dnb388465.jsp#
- https://www.dnb.nl/en/news/news-and-archive/Persberichten2019/dnb385424.jsp
- https://www.toezicht.dnb.nl/en/7/50-238246.jsp
