The South African Reserve Financial Institution [SARB] has published a consultation paper determining the advantages and the risks of cryptocurrencies. A number of South African Government Agencies have worked all together and created the consultation paper. The announcement about the paper was officially made public in a statement that was issued on 16 January.
The document is named as Consultation Paper on Policy Proposals for Crypto Assets. The South African Government Officers clearly stated that they are not imposing any ban on cryptocurrency payment or cryptocurrency trading as of now.
The consultation paper issued by government mentions that all cryptocurrency asset that is trading different platforms plus the custodial services, Crypto ATM’s and the payment service providers need to be registered with the Intergovernment FinTech Working Group [IFWG]. A few days ago the South African government executives officially established the IFWG. The main objective of the IFWG is to strengthen the innovations of Fintech and at the same time keeping up the uninterrupted functions of the money markets of cryptocurrency.
By the consultation paper, all organizations related to crypto must agree with the Anti-Money Laundering [AML] and with Counter-Terrorism Financing [CFT] needs governed by the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.
The advanced consultation paper has been developed by numerous state agencies which include agencies like Financial Intelligence Center [FIC], National Treasury [NT], Financial Sector Conduct Authority [FSCA], South African Revenue Service [SARS], South African Reserve Bank [SARB] which is the central bank of the Country.
As per the state agencies, joint statement announcing the consultation paper stated that the document would be available to the people basically for feedback purpose till 15 February 2019.
At the beginning of January, the Cointelegraph said that a regulatory working committee had been established by the South African Government that will mainly focus on the blockchain and cryptocurrency. According to the Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni of South Africa, The final research paper related to the industry will be published by the working committee during the year 2019.
Last year in the month of June 2018, the central bank of Africa SARB unveiled that the Proof-of-Concept [PoC] has successfully passed the litmus test conducted by SARB, the PoC is meant for interbank payment system which will help in tokenizing fiat by using a private blockchain like the Quorum and the Ethereum [ETH].