Australian cryptocurrency exchanges must now register with AUSTRAC

As of April 3rd, changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act) in Australia will affect digital currency exchange (DCE) services.

Australian exchanges will be required to register with AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre) and meet their obligations.

The changes to the regulation mentioned above will involve mandatory registration and compliance obligations, including:

– customer identification and due diligence
– adopting and maintaining an AML/CTF program—this includes identifying, managing and lessening money laundering and terrorism financing risk
– suspicious matter reporting
– threshold transaction reporting—this involves cash amounts of $10,000 or more
– record keeping.

The team of CoinTree, an Australian cryptocurrency exchange included in the new register said:

“We see this as an important step toward building real confidence with the general public and investors that the cryptocurrency industry is not only safe but is supported as the way of the future. For new and existing customers, there will be no impact. CoinTree has always been proactive with its policies and practices. We are happy to say that we already meet a majority of the new requirements. For those requirements that aren’t quite completely met yet, the changes required are internal only and will not affect any customers.”

At this stage, the list of registered providers is not public, however, AUSTRAC told us this may change in future.

On December 7th, 2017, the Australian Senate passed legislation extending anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulation to digital currency exchanges.