Turkey in “Final Stage” of Bringing Crypto Legislation as Last Step to Get off FATF’s Grey List: Minister

Turkey is in the “final stage” of bringing crypto legislation to its parliament, a last step required for it to be removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list,” its finance minister Mehmet Şimşek told the nation’s planning and budget commission late on Tuesday.

The FATF’s “grey list” is seen as a reprimand to address strategic deficiencies in regimes to counter money laundering and terrorist financing. Turkey has been on the “grey list” of the Paris-based global money laundering and terror financing watchdog since 2021, breaking confidence in the Turkish economy, which has already been under a dark cloud of high inflation, making crypto remarkably popular, “basically a saviour.”

Turkey has complied “with 39 out of 40 FATF standards,” Simsek said, according to CoinDesk Turkey. “Regarding technical compliance, the only ongoing preparations are related to work on crypto assets. Our necessary efforts in this regard have reached the final stage.”

Last week, Turkey’s finance ministry announced it would carry out a study on regulating crypto asset service providers and taxing and defining virtual assets, but the latest revelation refers to its motivation to bring crypto legislation to parliament as a final step to fulfill FATF’s technical requirements to be removed from the “grey list.”

“We will submit a law proposal on crypto-assets to the parliament as soon as possible,” Simsek said, according to CoinDesk Turkey. “After that, there will be no reason for Turkey to stay in that grey list, if there are no other political considerations.”