2021 will witness lot of regulatory efforts channelled towards virtual assets: SBI official

The use of crowdfunding websites create additional risk and the year 2021 will see a lot of regulatory effort channelled towards virtual assets, a senior SBI official said on Monday.

Addressing a virtual 'AML/CFT Conference 2020', Sujit Kumar Varma, SBI's Deputy Managing Director (Corporate Accounts Group) said that the trade-based money laundering remains a significant risk.

"The use of crowdfunding websites, although not entirely new, create an additional risk as these are specially designed to solicit funding and can be misused for terror financing," he said.

Varma also noted that crypto currencies and its potential means to finance terrorism is a significant threat especially when is anonymous in nature.

"The year 2021 will see a lot of regulatory effort channelled towards virtual assets. The year 2021 will also likely witness the introduction of more rules and regulations for virtual assets service providers," he said.

According to Varma, there will be enhanced supervision for those dealing in precious metals and jewels from next year.

The senior SBI official also noted that baseline expectations of regulators are that financial institutions must ensure that there is market integrity.

"The Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance programme should take a tailored approach...one size fits all approach won't work in case of regulatory compliance,'' he opined.

Noting that regulators across the globe have intensified their scrutiny, Varma said the shortage of trained compliance officers is forcing banks to offer higher salaries to find and recruit the best talent.