Ministers at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) have said they intend to step up their efforts to effectively implement standards to regulate virtual assets and virtual assets service providers. The FAFT Plenary agreed on a roadmap to strengthen the implementation of FAFT Standards on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) (Recommendation 15) in order to prevent the misuse of virtual assets for illicit finance.
The FATF has conducted a stocktake of current levels of implementation across the global network and published a table which sets out the status of implementation of Recommendation 15 by FATF members and other jurisdictions with materially important VASP activity.
The Cayman Islands is noted as being “Largely Compliant” in the table. The Ministry for Financial Services and Commerce has also recently completed a public consultation concerning proposed provisions of the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act relating to the licensing of virtual asset trading platforms and custodians and proposing revisions to the Act to facilitate this process as well as a number of changes to the Act which are necessary for the supervision of virtual asset services in the Cayman Islands.