The National Bank of Georgia is preparing a legal framework to regulate the local crypto market.
The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) is working on a legislative framework to regulate the country’s cryptocurrency market. The bank’s governor Koba Gvenetadze announced this in an interview with The Financial.
The regulatory framework is being developed with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requirements, involving the active participation of specialists from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is supposed to approve the registration and licensing procedures for the crypto market participants, as well as prescribe procedures to monitor compliance with AML processes.
According to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures (Moneyval), the monthly volume of exchange transactions with cryptocurrencies in Georgia was from 3.5 to 5 million GEL ($1.1-1.6 million) in 2020. The country’s Central Bank has already introduced some measures to regulate the market, banning financial institutions from exchanging and transferring crypto assets. At the end of 2021, the National Bank of Georgia announced plans to launch a pilot program to introduce digital lari (CBDC) in 2022. Earlier, analysts from Deloitte suggested improving existing CBDC practices by using some elements of the Bitcoin network.
