Updated FATF guidance for a risk-based approach to Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers

On 28 October 2021, the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) published an updated version of its guidance for a risk-based approach to virtual assets (the “VAs”) and virtual asset service providers (the “VASPs”) (the “Revised Guidance”).

The Revised Guidance aims at supplementing its previous guidance dated June 2019 by focusing on the following key areas:

• clarify the definitions of VAs and VASPs;
• provide explanations as to when and how the Revised Guidance applies to stablecoins;
• provide guidance on the risks and tools available to countries to address the risks relating to peer-to-peer transactions;
• provide updated guidance on the licensing and registration of VASPs;
• provide additional guidance on the implementation of the travel rule; and
• include principles of information sharing and cooperation amongst authorities competent for supervising VASPs.

The Revised Guidance notably provides clarifications on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralised finance (DeFi), decentralised or distributed applications (DApp) and multi-signature arrangements.

Please do not hesitate to contact one of our experts for any questions on the above.