310 digital currency exchanges registered with Austrac

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) revealed it has registered 310 digital currency exchange providers since April 2018, after it gained authorisation the prior December to extend anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulation to cryptocurrency.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2017 requires DCE providers to enrol with Austrac and register on the Digital Currency Exchange Register the government agency maintains.

Exchanges are also required to adopt and maintain a program to identify, mitigate, and manage the money laundering and terrorism financing risks they may face. Similar to a bank, the exchange must also identify and verify the identities of their customers; and report suspicious matters, international transactions, and transactions involving physical currency that exceed AU$10,000 to Austrac.

Certain records related to transactions, customer identification, and their program must also be kept for seven years.

Between April and August 2018, Austrac received between 20 and 58 new registrations per month. Since that time, monthly registrations have remained below 20.

Austrac said it does not monitor the total volume of digital currency exchanges and does not monitor the total amount of money that passes through digital currency exchanges.

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Source: 310 digital currency exchanges registered with Austrac | ZDNet