The Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFCRA) recently announced that virtual asset services may not be conducted in or from the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC). The regulator was in the cryptonews for announcing new measures in a tweet that they published on December 26.
They also said that the authorized firms are not permitted to provide or facilitate the provision or exchange of crypto assets and related services until further notice. As the QFCRA warned in a tweet published on December 26th:
“The Regulatory Authority shall impose penalties in accordance with its rights and obligations […] in case of any violation of undertaking […] activities that are not permitted in the QFC.”
Presently, the Qatar Financial Centre is seen as a business and a major financial hub with its own legal, regulatory, tax and business infrastructure in the country. It was created in order to attract businesses to the area and promote economic development in the country. As their official website notes, the hub has attracted more than 500 firms with $20 billion in combined total assets under management.
On top of this, the QFCRA has been known as defining virtual asset services as the exchange between crypto and fiat – or crypto and crypto – the transfer of crypto assets, the safekeeping or administration of virtual assets or tools for their management and participation in or provision of financial services related to the virtual assets.
As an article published the next day by a local media outlet showed, the Qatar Financial Centre reacted to the country adopting new Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (CFT) norms. The governor of the central bank in the country Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud Al Thani commented:
“The State of Qatar affirms that fighting money laundering and terrorist financing requires a strict and effective regulatory and legislative framework, whereby the powers and responsibilities of both government agencies and relevant ministries are defined in relation to combating money laundering and terrorist financing.”
Many other countries have banned cryptocurrencies so far. In April 2019, the Indian government reportedly started inter-ministerial consultations to ban cryptocurrencies. Also, China banned domestic cryptocurrency exchanges since 2017.
In contrast, countries like Switzerland and Malta are continuing to open up to the possibilities of digital assets.
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