The Blockchain Association of Singapore (“BAS”) is an industry body whose mission is to be the leading industry organisation for the advocacy, collaboration, convergence, and fair use of blockchain and scalable technologies in Singapore, which has a vibrant blockchain community.
Our members include Virtual Asset Service Providers (“VASPs”) (cryptocurrency exchanges, digital asset exchanges, custodial providers, OTC platforms, most of which are regulated in Singapore under the Payment Services Act), blockchain-based enterprises, academia, RegTech providers and professional consultancy firms.
BAS’ Regulatory and Compliance Sub-Committee had organised a Webinar on 1 Apr 2021 attracting 247 registrants, attended by around 214 participants from about 156 companies. This set of submissions crystallizes some of the comments received during the Webinar.
A panel of the Sub-Committee members, comprising former regulators and compliance thought leaders from the community, had led discussion of issues during the Webinar.
At the outset, we would like to reiterate that BAS is committed to ensure upholding of robust and risk-appropriate standards of Anti-Moneylaundering (“AML”) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (“CFT”) for the blockchain industry and is generally supportive of greater clarity on international prescriptions for AML/CFT compliance. For instance, we have conducted various webinars for our members to promote AML/CFT compliance, including a session relating to FATF’s Virtual Assets Red Flags Indicators of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Sep 2020).
