Central Bank of Armenia Urged to Regulate Cryptocurrencies

Calls have been issued in Armenia for the central bank to do its job and put the country’s crypto space in order. Both government regulators and representatives of the financial sector insist that the industry needs regulation to prevent the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit purposes.

Bankers and Tax Officials in Armenia Call for Crypto Regulations

The State Revenue Committee (SRC), a regulatory body responsible for tax and customs services in Armenia, has turned to the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), urging the monetary authority to ensure the country’s crypto market is regulated. Speaking in the Armenian parliament, the head of the agency, Rustam Badasyan, elaborated:

Without regulating this area, we allow shady transactions to be made and there have been examples of both tax evasion and money laundering using cryptocurrencies.

The SRC official made the statement during parliamentary hearings devoted to the execution of last year’s state budget, the financial and banking news portal Armbanks.am reported on Wednesday. The committee works closely with the CBA and oversees the Customs Service and the Tax Service of the small South Caucasus nation.

Badasyan also noted that authorities are now unable to take any action regarding transactions with digital assets. He pointed to a case involving the exchange of a large amount of fiat cash for cryptocurrency, in which an investigation failed to produce any results due to the lack of a legal framework for this sphere.

His comments follow an earlier statement by the Executive Director of the Union of Banks of Armenia Seyran Sargsyan, who said that the issues associated with the identification of cryptocurrency users and the transparency of crypto transactions need to be addressed. The banker emphasized that financial institutions in Armenia do not work with digital coins and do not provide related services.

In March 2021, Armenia and the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) failed to agree on a common approach towards the adoption of rules for the crypto economy in their jurisdictions, the crypto news outlet Forklog noted in a report. The calls for crypto regulation in Armenia come as ongoing discussions on the matter in Russia are delaying its regulatory framework.

Do you expect Armenia to quickly adopt cryptocurrency regulations? Tell us in the comments section below.

Lubomir Tassev

Lubomir Tassev is a journalist from tech-savvy Eastern Europe who likes Hitchens’s quote: “Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” Besides crypto, blockchain and fintech, international politics and economics are two other sources of inspiration.

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