New Swiss AML rule limits unidentified crypto payments to $1000

Recent reports indicate that the Swiss FINMA (Financial Market Supervisory Authority) has passed a new AML rule. After establishing previously unconsidered risks, the country’s regulator has decided yesterday, February 7th, that the limit for unidentified transactions should be reduced.

The limit, which previously sat at 5,000 CHF ($5,100) is now reduced to one-fifth of the amount, or 1,000 CHF ($1.020). The change came just after the enactment of the two recent acts — Financial Institutions Act, and Financial Services Act — which were enforced on January 1st.

The country’s law-makers will also hold a consultation on additional regulation until April 9th of this year.

The new rules

According to what is known, there were several important changes, one of the biggest ones being the normalization of the country’s natural regulations with the FATF directives from June of last year. In other words, the regulator reduced the limit for unidentified crypto exchange operations to $1,000.

Any businesses or financial providers that might use crypto payments will, therefore, have to collect data on anyone who breaches this limit, and the data will need to be submitted to the authorities for reviews on regular basis. The change is not particularly surprising, considering that nations around the world have seen a considerable increase in the strictness of AML regulations.

By choosing to implement the new directive, the FINMA is admitting that there are heightened money-laundering risks that need addressing. Meanwhile, the EU also implemented its 5AMLD (5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive) recently, and the new directive also comes with a special focus on certain types of digital currency transactions. The most notable of the new rules is the rather strict requirement that extensive customer data is recorded and reported.