Friday, 03 September 2021 13:11

Banks are not obliged to provide financial services to Bitcoin users and suppliers

Written by Evelyn Alas

In the regulation of the Bitcoin Law published a few days ago by the Central Government, it indicates that banks will now be able to provide financial services to Bitcoin service providers or open accounts to users in bitcoin in an optional and not mandatory manner.

One of the important points the regulation makes is that, "according to Art. 6, any Bank that provides its financial services to a Bitcoin Service Provider shall implement controls over the providers to ensure compliance with all applicable laws".

Also, anti-money laundering laws will be included, as well as international best practices established by the Grupo de Acción Financiera Internacional (GAFI), in accordance with prudential principles of safe and sound banking and its own comprehensive risk management.

The Executive Director of the trade association representing the export sector COEXPORT Silvia Cuellar, said that, "this is a simple regulation and we have to socialize it, we have an interview on Friday and we have two economists who will be talking about the regulation, to know it better...We had a meeting with the Ministerio de Economía (MINEC), but not about the regulation, they only talked to us about the Chivo Wallet, and we had asked to wait at least one more month for its implementation and they said no".

In addition, the regulation indicates in Art. 7 that, "in order to guarantee the financial inclusion of the population, the Banks must provide their services as exchange platforms in such a way that they do not generate commission for the end user of the wallets, in accordance with the regulations issued by the Banco Central de Reserva (BCR) for such purpose".

This regulation will have the supervision and sanctions required for any undue action by the Superintendencia del Sistema Financiero (SSF), which will have all the powers of supervision and regulation according to its Law of Creation, Regulation and applicable regulations for the obligated subjects of the Bitcoin Law.

According to Art. 3, Bitcoin Service Providers, before performing operations, must submit to the BCR, within 20 working days after the entry into force of this Regulation, only the form and the digital copy of the articles of incorporation and the Identity Documents of its partners, or in case of natural persons, the Documento Único de Identidad (DUI), or passport.