“Today’s announcement of co‑ordinated international action on cryptoassets is a major step forward, marking another important milestone towards the widespread and co-ordinated approach to combat tax evasion through greater transparency and exchange of information,” Secretary-General Cormann said.

“We strongly welcome the extensive support being shown for quick action to make the international exchange of information collected under the OECD standard on cryptoasset reporting a reality. The international community can count on the OECD and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to ensure that the tax transparency architecture remains both up-to-date and effective going forward.”

The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) is a key component of the International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters developed by the OECD under a G20 mandate. It provides for the automatic exchange of tax-relevant information on cryptoassets and comes against the backdrop of a rapid adoption of the use of cryptoassets for a wide range of investment and financial uses.

The paper highlights the "significant environmental externalities created by Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies" and aims to "quantify these externalities, illustrate the mechanisms by which they arise, and discuss feasible mechanisms to regulate them."

Under the Act on Virtual Currency Providers, a trader may provide services related to virtual currencies in Finland only if registered as a virtual currency provider in accordance with the Act.

The reference date of the data to be collected to the first annual report is 31 December 2021, and the reporting deadline is 28 February 2022. A notice of reporting obligation has been sent to the companies separately.

At the same time, the regulator extended the scope of application of the FIN-FSA Standard 2.4 “Customer due diligence; Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing” to cover virtual currency providers from 1 December 2019 onwards. 

The regulations and guidelines present the FIN-FSA’s regulations, guidelines, recommendations and interpretations applicable to virtual currency providers concerning the holding of client money as well as compliance with legal provisions on customer due diligence and other anti-money laundering and counter terrorist-financing legislation.

Virtual currency providers operating in the market prior to the Act coming into force must submit an application for registration with the FIN-FSA by 18 August 2019 in order that their qualification for registration can be assessed by 1 November. New providers considering the launch of activities after the entry into force of the Act may only provide services to customers after their applications for registration have been processed and approved.