Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Act 2021

Amendment of section 24 of Act of 2010

4. Section 24 (amended by section 4 of the Act of 2018) of the Act of 2010 is amended, in subsection (1)—

(a) in the definition of “financial institution”—

(i) in subparagraph (iii) of paragraph (g), by the substitution of “if section 2(6) of that Act did not apply,” for “if section 2(6) of that Act did not apply;”, and

(ii) by the insertion of the following paragraph after paragraph (g):

“(h) a virtual asset service provider;”,

(b) by the substitution of the following definition for the definition of “property service provider”:

“(c)‘property service provider’ means a person who provides a property service within the meaning of the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 ;”,

and

(c) by the insertion of the following definitions:

“ ‘custodian wallet provider’ means an entity that provides services to safeguard private cryptographic keys on behalf of its customers, to hold, store and transfer virtual currencies;

‘Electronic Identification Regulation’ means Regulation (EU) No. 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 20142 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC;

‘virtual asset’ means a digital representation of value that can be digitally traded or transferred and can be used for payment or investment purposes but does not include digital representations of fiat currencies, securities or other financial assets;

‘virtual asset service provider’ means a person who by way of business carries out one or more of the following activities for, or on behalf of, another person:

(a) exchange between virtual assets and fiat currencies;

(b) exchange between one or more forms of virtual assets;

(c) transfer of virtual assets, that is to say, conduct a transaction on behalf of another person that moves a virtual asset from one virtual asset address or account to another;

(d) custodian wallet provider;

(e) participation in, and provision of, financial services related to an issuer’s offer or sale of a virtual asset or both;

but does not include a designated person that is not a financial or credit institution and that provides virtual asset services in an incidental manner and is subject to supervision by a national competent authority, other than the Bank;”.

2 OJ No. L 257, 28.8.2014, p. 73