G20 Communiqué Calls for Recommendations for Regulation of Crypto-Assets

The G20 has published a Communiqué following the meeting of Finance Ministers & Central Bank Governors in Buenos Aires on March 19 – 20, 2018.

Among other things, the Communiqué states that the G20 welcomes the finalization of Basel III and remains committed to full, timely and consistent implementation and finalization of the reforms. The G20 looks forward to the outcome of the evaluation of the reforms to identify and address any unintended consequences, which is being led by the Financial Stability Board.

The G20 also commits to continue to address the decline in correspondent banking relationships. It welcomes the FSB's March 2018 progress report on correspondent banking and calls on the FSB to monitor, with the FATF, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group and the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, the adoption of the recommendations in the FSB's March 2018 report "Stocktake of Remittance Service Providers' Access to Banking Services."

In the area of technological innovation, the G20 is concerned that crypto-assets raise a number of problematic issues in the contexts of consumer and investor protection, market integrity, tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing. They may also have implications for financial stability. The G20 commits to implementing the FATF standards as they apply to crypto-assets and looks forward to the FATF's review of those standards. The G20 also calls on international standard setting bodies to continue monitoring crypto-assets and on the FSB, in consultation with other standard setting bodies, including the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures the International Organization of Securities Commissioners and the FATF to report on their work on crypto-assets in July 2018.

The G20 is also considering the impact of technology, particularly digitalization, on the global economy due to its borderless and intangible nature, and its increasing ability to automate cognitive tasks. It calls on the Framework Working Group to develop a menu of policy options which the G20 can draw on when responding to the impacts of technological change.

The G20 is concerned about provision of financial services to unserved and under-served individuals and businesses currently operating in the informal economy. It calls on GPFI to produce, by July 2018, a policy guide for G20 and non-G20 countries to use digitization to provide financial services.

The G20 commits to step up the fight against terrorist financing, money laundering and proliferation financing and calls on the FATF to enhance its efforts to counter proliferation financing.

View the Communiqué.

View the Annex.