The Council of Europe, in cooperation with the National Bank of Georgia and the Financial Monitoring Service, organised a two-day training on “Anti-money laundering/countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance for virtual asset service providers (VASPs)”, attended by 44 representatives of VASPs.  

The activity is part of a sequence of events to support the efforts of the national authorities of Georgia in enhancing AML/CFT compliance and ensuring effective supervision over the alternative payment methods. 

VASPs became subject to AML/CFT requirements following amendments to the Law of Georgia on Facilitating the Suppression of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, which entered into force on January 1, 2023.  The amendments followed MONEYVAL 5th Round Evaluation Report of Georgia 2020 (MER)  surfacing the fact that VASPs in Georgia were not subject to AML/CFT requirements and recommended establishing measures to prevent and mitigate the ML/FT risks that could derive from virtual assets. Following MONEYVAL’s recommendations, VASPs became regulated entities with an obligation to undertake AML/CFT compliance procedures. 

The training aimed at enhancing the understanding of VASPs in regard to implementing the national AML/CFT legal requirements, acknowledge the ML/FT risks associated with their activities and take appropriate mitigating measures to address them. The contributions from the representatives of the National Bank of Georgia and Financial Monitoring Service underlined the national legislative framework and procedural requirements, combined with perspectives from regulatory and reporting entity viewpoints. 

Participants benefited from presentations from the Council of Europe experts highlighting good practices for preventing and countering ML/FT within the sector, detailed reviews of Customer Due Diligence (CDD), Know Your Customer (KYC) and Travel Rule requirements, as well as methods for conducting ongoing monitoring, reporting suspicious transactions and applying targeted financial sanctions.  

This capacity-building activity contributed to the efforts of Georgian authorities to implement MONEYVAL recommendations, which includes the establishment of effective AML/CFT supervision as well as development of a sound understanding by supervisors and obliged entities of the AML/CFT risks associated with the sector and relevant AML/CFT obligations.

This event is part of the European Union and the Council of Europe joint programme “Partnership for Good Governance”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe, in the framework of the project “Consolidating and Enhancing the Institutional and Operational Frameworks for the Prevention and Combatting of Corruption, Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in Georgia”.