Washington-based Advisory Firm Urges The US Congress To Regulate Crypto

Washnington based advisory firm, Financial Integrity Network (FIN) has requested the U.S. Congress to to set up a system-wide governance for virtual asset service providers (VASPs).

David Murray, FIN’s vice president for product development and services has said:

“Some VASPs are currently regulated as money transmitters under the BSA. Others are not regulated at all. Even for those VASPs currently regulated as money transmitters, the regulations are insufficient to protect virtual assets from exploitation.”

The FIN testimony insisted that legislation gets passed that bans anonymous companies. The Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act is one legislative initiative under consideration that would ban anonymous companies.

The press release of the report goes on to say:

“The heinousness of human trafficking demands a swift response that enables financial institutions to prevent financial transactions related to human trafficking or to detect them quickly once they have occurred. We can better protect our financial system by banning anonymous companies, strengthening cryptocurrency regulation, and improving transparency of retail and other consumer payments.”

Moreover, the testimony says that crypto regulations could be made strong by making a new class of financial institution: virtual asset transaction validators.

The lack of system-wide financial crimes compliance (FCC) governance for some existing cryptocurrencies allows criminals to operate and makes it difficult for the United States to narrow down on bad actors.

Human trafficking is difficult to combat, because the financial transactions associated dwell in parts of our financial system where transparency may be poor: small payments carried out through retail payment systems, online payment systems, and cryptocurrencies, and large payments carried out through anonymous companies.