On Thursday 7 December 2017 Parliament passed the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Act 2017 (Amendment Act). Royal Assent was granted on 13 December 2017. Any changes will come into effect from the date of Proclamation, which is expected to be in early April 2018.

The Amendment Act expands legislation to include regulation of digital currency exchange providers. This regulation will be in the form of mandatory registration and compliance obligations, including:

customer identification and due diligence
adopt and maintain an AML/CTF program, which includes requirements to identify, manage and mitigate money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) risk
suspicious matter reporting
threshold transaction reporting
record-keeping requirements.

What happens next?

AUSTRAC has drafted AML/CTF Rules for public consultation, as follows:

16 January 2018 – Draft Rules published on AUSTRAC's website for public consultation.
http://www.austrac.gov.au/draf...
13 February 2018 – Draft Rules public consultation period will close.

More information

AUSTRAC will keep you updated as information and guidance becomes available. We will also advise you when your obligations will commence from.