Local sources in Taiwan are reporting that Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) sent a letter to Taiwan’s association banks asking them to stop facilitating any transactions for crypto-related merchants.
The financial regulators want credit card service providers to stop processing any transactions for high-risk payments which include stocks, options, futures, and online gambling.
The FSC states in the letter that it believes that credit cards should be used for purchasing goods and services instead of facilitating any high-risk financial investments which include speculative trading.
The local reports also added that the FSC has given local credit card service providers who service crypto transactions a three-month deadline to comply with the FSC’s requirement after which the companies must submit an audit to the FSC to prove their compliance.
This is not the first time the Taiwan government has taken a negative stance on cryptocurrency. The country had cautioned against investing in crypto assets in April 2021 citing the highly speculative nature of cryptocurrency as the reason.
The country enacted stringent Anti-money laundering laws (AML) against crypto service providers in the country requiring them to report any transaction worth over $17,900 while enforcing a mandatory KYC procedure before customers could use the exchanges.
The country’s Central Bank reportedly advised against investing in NFTs in June 2022 because they believed the NFT ecosystem is filled with fake transactions.
The country is however on the verge of launching its own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) despite its cold shoulder towards digital assets. Taiwan’s Central Bank announced last month that it had been developing Taiwan’s CBDC for two years with trials already being run on the prototype.
The bank did not reveal a launch date for the CBDC although they confirmed that the digital currency would allow citizens to make payments using a digital wallet without needing a debit or credit card.
Featured image source: cryptopotato.com
