Anno 2020: money laundering rules are tightening in Estonia

What is exactly changing?

Until 2020 and 2021, a number of important changes will remain in the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act (RahaPTS), which cryptographic companies must take into account and bring their activities into line with. There has been a lot of talk about money laundering scandals that have ravaged Estonian banks, but their actions by the legislator regarding business related to virtual currencies may have overshadowed them.

On March 10 2020, the version of RahaPTS entered into force, which introduced new requirements for obligated parties. For companies already holding a license, the deadline for complying with the new requirements was set at 1 July 2020. The main changes were to combine the provision of a virtual currency exchange service and the provision of a virtual currency wallet service into one license for virtual currency service providers.

The main change must be the location and place of business of the legal person providing the service in Estonia and this must be indicated in the company’s articles of association, commercial register and register of economic activities. In practice, this also means that a member of the management board must actually manage the activities of the association from Estonia, for example by having an Estonian…