Earlier this week the Deputy Minister and President of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Tharman Shanmugaratnam, explained his plans regarding the cryptocurrencies and the laws of the country that deal with money laundering and the financing of terrorist acts.
For Shanmugaratnam there should be no differentiation between the transactions that are carried out in cryptocurrencies and those that use fiat money. The president emphasized that the main financial entities of the country, being these the MAS, the Singapore's Financial Regulator and the Central Bank will abide by this regulation from now on.
The ultimate goal of this action plan is to strengthen the laws against money laundering and the financing of terrorist acts. That is why, in addition to the previously mentioned measures, Shanmugaratnam announced that the Department of Commercial Affairs will be able to carry out investigations and prosecute cases that are linked to this type of criminal acts.
With regard to the regulation of cryptocurrencies, Shanmugaratnam acknowledged that the ease of maintaining transactions with this type of money in anonymity is what makes it difficult to regulate transactions with virtual money.
In order to be able to overcome this obstacle, the MAS will seek to impose measures that are directly destined to those intermediaries who exchange fiat money for cryptocurrencies to use the latter in money laundering operations or to finance terrorist acts.
It is important to mention that the MAS does not directly oppose cryptocurrencies and does not seek to regulate them in its entirety, what it wants is to avoid as far as possible that its use is for illicit activities, therefore, the regulations that apply in the future will be to obtain tools that monitor foreign exchange transactions.