El Salvador bitcoin exchanges must open registration of users and their transactions

The Salvadoran government reformed the anti-money laundering law and included bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency service providers. It established regulations and obligations for these companies in the sector.

The reform was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of El Salvador and clearly indicates that these cryptocurrency companies will have to register with the authorities and also meet a series of requirements to be able to operate legally on Salvadoran soil.

In the reform, which has already entered into force, the focus is on the providers of wallets, payment gateways and cryptocurrency exchange houses, which are considered “obligated subjects” to inform and report traditional and suspicious financial operations, according to the anti-laundering law.

In this sense, these cryptocurrency companies must have, among other things, the registration of clients of their platforms, as well as all the operations that are executed in them. “That allow knowing the origin and destination of transactions with virtual assets,” says the document.

Also, cryptocurrency companies should detect unusual operations and report them to the authorities. Also, they will have to comply with transaction limit policies within the platforms.

Regulated companies in El Salvador must also have a compliance officer, that it will have “independence and autonomy” to make decisionsin accordance with the reform to the anti-laundering law of El Salvador.

The regulations also require these service providers maintain policies to prevent loss or theft of customer assetsas well as records of the assets, liabilities and equity of the company.

El Salvador approved laws in favor of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies

The update of El Salvador’s anti-laundering law and the inclusion of cryptocurrency service providers in it comes weeks after other legislation was approved and entered into force that seek to promote the Bitcoin ecosystem in the country.

As reported by CriptoNoticias, Bukele recently signed the Law for the Promotion of Technological Manufacturing, which supposes the elimination of taxes for 15 years to all those who invested in technological development from the Central American nation.

In January, the Parliament of El Salvador approved the Digital Assets Issuance Law which, among other things, paves the way for the expected arrival of bitcoin bonds (also called volcano bonds), which will be issued by the Bitfinex exchange in the coming weeks.