[ICA Report] Virtual Assets: Managing the Regulatory and Financial Crime Compliance Risks

Given the speed at which new uses of blockchain technology are being developed, and the rate at which the market for virtual assets (VAs) is expanding and evolving, it comes as no surprise that the regulation of VAs remains fragmented at a global level.  

From a compliance and financial crime prevention perspective this creates significant challenges, both for new market entrants and traditional financial service providers.   

ICA’s latest report, entitled ‘Virtual Assets: Managing the Regulatory and Financial Crime Compliance Risks’, provides a range of expert insight and analysis on virtual assets and their associated regulatory and financial crime compliance risks. The report considers the thrilling new opportunities that the virtual asset space has opened up, as well as the risks deriving from criminal exploitation and a lack of regulatory oversight in this burgeoning area. 

Our contributors, from a range of backgrounds and roles, trace the development of virtual assets – including their seismic impact – across the last decade, before considering how they are likely to develop. 

They discuss how risks inherent to virtual assets can be mitigated (including through the use of new technology), and how the opportunities they provide can be exploited for commercial gain.  

Contributors also reflect on the regulatory response to virtual assets, before looking to the future to cast their predictions on how regulators and financial services will respond as virtual assets evolve.  

The report also contains reminders on how a lack of knowledge, planning and governance could lead to regulatory censure. Virtual assets, our contributors agree, are here to say.

Compliance professionals need to come to terms with their benefits and drawbacks to protect themselves and the firms for which they work, so as to reap the benefits in the years to come.