Solomon Samuel 
The European Banking Authority (EBA), the banking regulator of the European Union, intends to revise current Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations about cryptocurrency providers.
The EBA explains in a consultation document published on November 24 that existing European regulations are inadequate to oversee crypto providers’ compliance with AML/CFT standards.
The proposed new industry guidelines aim to tackle these concerns, and the EBA has extended a comment period until February 26, 2024, for interested parties. The EBA specifically proposes the consolidation of the AML/CFT criteria for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) and payment service providers.
It also proposes mandating CASPs to improve the interoperability of their protocols to “enable the transmission of information in a seamless and interoperable manner.”
CASPs will also be obligated to acquire and retain data regarding self-hosted addresses, ensure that the transfer of crypto assets can be uniquely identified, and validate whether the address in question is under the ownership or control of the CASP client, following the proposed new regulations.
The aforementioned criteria would come into effect once the transfer volume of the self-hosted account exceeded 1,000 euros.
However, the EBA does not provide information regarding whether this threshold is assessed on a monthly, daily, or one-time basis.
On December 30, 2024, following the consultation phase, the revised guidelines are anticipated to be implemented.
The EBA published a consultation paper in October that evaluated the suitability of shareholders or members holding qualifying interests and management body members as issuers of asset-referenced tokens and CASPs.
The EBA issued a recommendation in July for issuers of stablecoins to voluntarily comply with a set of “guiding principles” about consumer protection and risk management.
