On July 14, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on the State Bank of Vietnam; Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Law on Credit Institutions.
Presenting the Government's report, Member of the Party Central Committee, Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Pham Duc An said that the draft law has amended and supplemented regulations to ensure timeliness, strictness, and to prevent negativity, loss, waste and violations of the law. At the same time, focus on solving difficulties and obstacles that have been recorded in practice; concretizing international standards on anti-money laundering.
Regarding money laundering prevention and control, Governor Pham Duc An said that the draft law has added "crypted asset services" as a reporting object.
Suspicious signs in the field of cryptocurrencies; responsibilities for implementing measures to prevent and combat money laundering, inspection, examination, and supervision of reporting objects in the field of cryptocurrencies of the Ministry of Finance are also stipulated in the draft law.
The draft law stipulates 15 suspicious signs in the field of encrypted assets.
In which, typical examples include dividing cryptocurrency transactions into many items with values lower than regulations on customer identification or reporting according to regulations; or performing many large-value transactions in a short time without clear business purposes.
Or such as loading, trading and withdrawing encrypted assets continuously in a very short time immediately after establishing customer relationships, which is not consistent with the customer's profile and characteristics; or making transactions to, from newly opened accounts or accounts that have not been active for a long time.
The draft law stipulates that the Government Inspectorate is responsible for inspecting anti-money laundering activities for reporting subjects in the field of state management of Ministries without Ministry Inspectorates, which is based on the results of the national risk assessment on money laundering, and the results of the risk assessment on money laundering of that reporting subject.
For the Ministry of Finance, the draft law stipulates that it shall preside over and coordinate with relevant agencies to implement measures to prevent and combat money laundering in the fields of life insurance, securities, encrypted assets, accounting services, prize-winning electronic games, casinos, lottery, betting and other services under the state management scope of the Ministry.
Along with that, inspection of anti-money laundering activities for reporting subjects in the field of securities and encrypted assets.
Expressing the viewpoint of the thẩm tra agency, Member of the Party Central Committee, Chairman of the Economic and Finance Committee Phan Van Mai proposed to clarify the concept of "crypted asset services" and the scope of crypted asset services to be reported.
The Economic and Financial Committee also proposed to review and improve the criteria for identifying suspicious signs in the field of encrypted assets to ensure specific, feasible and specific guidance on data sources and methods of identifying signs.
At the same time, defining the responsibilities of organizations performing cryptocurrency asset services and money laundering prevention and control agencies.
Along with that, it is necessary to review regulations on the responsibilities of ministries and sectors in money laundering prevention and control activities, ensuring no overlap or omission of tasks, especially between the Government Inspectorate and ministries with specialized inspection agencies.
It is proposed to clarify the coordination mechanism between the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank and the Ministry of Public Security in inspecting anti-money laundering activities in the field of cryptocurrencies" - Mr. Phan Van Mai stated clearly.
