The EU plans to set some rules for virtual currencies

The European Union seems to have moved from a non-regulatory approach towards virtual currencies, to plans to impose some rules for exchanges involving virtual currencies across the Union. In its Conclusions on the fight against the financing of terrorism, issued on 12 February, the Council of the EU mentioned the ‘importance of achieving rapid progress on legislative actions […] in the field on virtual currencies’. On the same day, Valdis Dombrovskis, vice-president in the European Commission, said, in a press statement, that by June at the latest the Commission will propose measures to ‘have better control of payment forms such as virtual currencies’. Earlier this month, the Commission announced plans ‘to bring virtual currency exchange platforms under the scope of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, so that these platforms have to apply customer due diligence controls when exchanging virtual for real currencies, ending the anonymity associated with such exchanges’.