Turkey has announced plans to toughen its stance on cryptocurrencies in an attempt to see the country removed from an international ‘grey list’ of countries that have been identified as taking insufficient action to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing.

The announcement was made by the country’s finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, in a statement on Tuesday.

The minister said that the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) downgrade of Turkey to a grey list in 2021 was due to failing on just one of the 40 standards set out by the watchdog – the rule surrounding crypto.

The FATF was set up by the G7 to protect the global financial system from money laundering and terrorist funding. In 2019, it warned Turkey that the country needed to improve its measures to freeze assets linked to terrorist activities and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

Simek said that the country would amend its position on crypto to satisfy the FATF’s concerns, but did not reveal further details on the planned legal changes.

He said: "The only remaining issue within the scope of technical compliance is the work related to crypto assets.

"We will submit a law proposal on crypto-assets to the parliament as soon as possible. After that, there will be no reason for Turkey to stay in that grey list, if there are no other political considerations."

Share Story: