Ukraine’s head of the Ministry of Finance, Oksana Makarova, has revealed the country is planning to start tracking cryptocurrency transactions above $1,200. Makarova revealed this in a recent interview with the local news outlet, MC Today.
The law that would allow this was signed a month ago by Volodymir Zelensky, the country’s president, and it was brought in order to strengthen Ukraine’s AML procedures. Furthermore, the new AML practices are now in accordance with the Financial Action Task Force’s recommendations in regard to treating crypto payments.
This is the first time that the country’s AML laws include digital currencies as a monitored asset, and, as mentioned, the threshold for triggering the investigation is at $1,200 (30,000 UAH). In other words, no matter what institution makes the payment exceeding this amount — be it an exchange, bank, or some other company — they will have to verify the transaction and collect customer data.
In the interview Makarova said, “If exchanges, exchangers, banks or other companies make payments in cryptocurrencies worth more than UAH 30,000 in equivalent, they must verify such transaction and collect detailed customer information.”
Makarova added that the customers will have to provide detailed information regarding the origin, as well as the destination of their funds. Meanwhile, any transaction that might seem suspicious to the payment providers will be reported and investigated by the State Financial Monitoring Service (SCFM).
She noted she believes the volume of cryptocurrency circulating in the country is “quite high,” although she believes in Ukraine “criminals and corrupt officials are quite conservative and still keep the funds mostly in cash.”
