The European Banking Authority (EBA) has expanded the so-called ‘travel rule’ to help tackle money laundering and terrorist financing.
The ‘travel rule’ concerns the information that should accompany transfers of funds and certain crypto assets. The new regulation (EU) 2023/1113 requires crypto exchanges in the European Union to follow strict rules for reporting fund transfers and crypto assets. This is part of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which ensures that crypto service providers comply with the EU’s rules to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.
The guidelines, issued by the EBA, list the steps that payment service providers (PSPs), intermediary PSPs (IPSPs), crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) and intermediary CASPs (ICASPs) should take to detect missing or incomplete information. It also advises what they should do if a transfer of funds or a transfer of crypto-asset lacks the required information.
By issuing the new guidelines the EBA is aiming to establish an effective and consistent approach to implementing the travel rule across the EU that allows relevant authorities to fully trace suspicious transfers.
The guidelines, which will apply from 30 December 2024, will now be translated into the official EU languages and published on the EBA’s website. The deadline for competent authorities to report whether they comply with the guidelines will be two months after the publication of the translations, the EBA said.
