European Central Bank Chair Warns Malta Authorities; Strengthen Crypto Regulations

Malta's Crypto Island, was recently called out by European authorities. Andrea Enria, the European Central Bank’s (ECB) chair of the supervisory board, recently asked the local authorities to monitor the growth of the local crypto industry.

According to Enria’s recent interview with Reuters, there is a real necessity for services such as compliance and IT risks being handled better in the European Union. She cited Malta as a growing hub for blockchain activity and affirmed that it was especially important that Blockchain Island could update its policies in order to curb any suspicious activities and create a healthy market.

Malta is currently the base of several companies, including Binance, the largest crypto exchange of the world. The country attracted most of these companies by being very friendly in its regulations, which attracted the attention of the ECB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which also called out Malta.

Recently, Malta failed an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) evaluation, which has stained the international image of the country among the non-crypto part of the financial system.

Despite all these issues, Enria finished his interview by affirming that he was confident that Malta would be able to deliver desired results in time. The regulators of the country have recently published a three-year plan on how to improve their monitoring over the local crypto business, so they are making an effort.

Will this effort be enough? If it is not, the international authorities will certainly continue to look at Malta with attention.