In recent years, with the rapid development of new technology products/services related to virtual assets, related service platforms have emerged around the world and provide different forms of services. Due to the high concealment and convenience of related products/services, this potentially leads to higher risk of money laundering and terrorist financing and they are more likely to be abused by criminals as a channel to transfer illegal funds. Many countries/regions and international organizations have paid close attention to its use and development, and have introduced legal and regulatory measures to mitigate the risks of these virtual products/services.

In response, the “Financial Action Task Force” (FATF), an international anti-money laundering organization, has revised its international standards "40 Recommendations" to include definitions of "Virtual Assets" and "Virtual Asset Service Providers", requiring virtual assets and virtual asset service providers be regulated for Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) purposes and an effective regulatory regimes and penalties to be put in place. The Macao SAR is a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and is therefore subject to the same stringent AML/CFT standards required by FATF.

To this end, the Financial Intelligence Office invited its counterpart in Mainland China to conduct a webinar for members of the Interdepartmental AML/CFT Working Group on 30 March 2021, which included an introduction of the mechanism, concept and technology of the virtual currency identifying system developed by the National Internet Finance Association of China (NIFAC), a presentation was also conducted by a representative of the Anti-Money Laundering Bureau of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on policy of prohibiting virtual assets and the related service platforms, experience sharing of the compliance level of reporting entities in identifying those transactions as well as the related risk assessment. The above topics were presented by Yuan Lei, Senior Manager of NIFAC, and Wu Yun, Deputy Division Chief of Anti-Money Laundering Bureau of the PBOC respectively.

About 70 representatives from the Interdepartmental AML/CFT Working Group participated in the webinar. The webinar provided a clear and illustrative guidance for the awareness, use and identification of virtual assets and related service platforms.