The number of crypto companies registered in Estonia decreased by 80%
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In Estonia, the number of registered cryptocurrency companies decreased by almost 80%. This was reported by the Anti-Money Laundering Data Bureau (RAB), writes Forklog.
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Refusal of licenses
After the enhanced requirements of the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing came into force, about 200 companies refused their business licenses.
About the same amount canceled RAB due to non-compliance with the requirements. In total, licenses were revoked from 389 firms.
According to the head of the department, Matis Mäeker, when extending the permit, the Bureau repeatedly encountered “suspicious circumstances” that could potentially indicate a connection with illegal activity.
In some cases, RAB identified persons appointed by board members or contact persons who did not know about it themselves, did not have proper business reputation and whose resumes were falsified.
The business plans presented by several companies contained financial forecasts, typographical errors and lacked any logic.
Documents were often submitted in the wrong Estonian language — in some cases, inadequate machine translation was used. The applications of many companies came through the same legal service providers.
Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism
According to the current law, cryptocurrency companies operating on the territory of Estonia must have a minimum level of capital and have AML compliance experts on staff.
As of May 1, 2023, there were 100 business licenses in Estonia for the provision of services related to cryptocurrencies.
As a reminder, in 2020, the Estonian authorities revoked the licenses of more than 1,000 companies operating in the field of digital assets.
In January 2021, the Ministry of Finance presented a bill tightening the requirements for cryptocurrency companies.
Source: Ministry of Finance
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