Turkey is reportedly working to create new regulations to regulate crypto assets in order to convince the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to take them off the “grey list”. The list is of countries that have not done enough to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. The FATF added Turkey to the list in 2021.
At a parliamentary commission meeting on October 31, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said that the FATF’s report showed Turkey had met all but one of the 40 standards. The only one that was not met was related to crypto assets. Simsek said they were going to propose a crypto assets law to parliament in order to get off the grey list.
The Group of Seven (G7) created the FATF to protect the international financial system. In 2019, it warned Turkey about its deficiencies in freezing assets related to terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The Turkish Presidential Annual Program for 2024, published on October 25, said the goal is to have regulations for cryptocurrencies in place by the end of 2024. Article 400.5 in the document states that they will be defining crypto assets, potentially making them taxable. They will also be legally defining crypto asset providers such as cryptocurrency exchanges. The document does not provide more details on the upcoming regulations.
By December 2022, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey had tested its own central bank digital currency (digital lira). The bank plans to continue testing into 2024.
