This Wednesday, the 3rd, parliament approved, in particular, a diploma to combat money laundering through cryptoactives, to prevent illicit activities in this sector from July 1, 2026.
The initiative received the ‘green light’ unanimously at the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Commission (COFAP), with favorable votes from PSD, PS, Chega and CDS-PP, the only parties that participated in this vote.
At issue is a Government law proposal that transposes to the national level the rules that implement European regulation 2023/1113, which reinforces measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in Portuguese legislation, adapting the rules that already apply to the financial sector in relation to fund transfers to the reality of cryptoactives.
With the new measures, “cryptoactive service providers based in Portugal” are now considered financial entities for the purposes of supervision carried out by the Bank of Portugal, having to comply with the same rules that banks already have to follow to prevent cases of money laundering and terrorist financing through fund transfers.
Therefore, the Bank of Portugal will be responsible for supervising “crypto-asset service providers based in Portugal”, as well as “crypto-asset service providers based in another member state of the European Union established in national territory in a form other than a branch” and also credit institutions or “other entities of an equivalent nature, which operate in Portugal under a regime of freedom to provide services”.
If financial entities identify a “high risk” of money laundering in transfers of funds or crypto-assets, they will have to “know the entire circuit of funds or crypto-assets” and “all those involved” to ensure that “only entities or people duly authorized to process” operations with crypto-assets intervene, in whatever capacity.
At the proposal of the PSD and CDS-PP, the initiative, if approved in a final global vote and promulgated by the President of the Republic, will come into force on July 1, 2026, along with another initiative, also voted and approved today in the specialty, which transposes the European regulation known as “Mica” to the national level, to reinforce supervision over the activity of cryptoactive companies.
The PS presented an initiative in the same direction, for the new rules to only come into force in the second half of next year and, since the PSD and CDS-PP proposal was validated first, this change did not come to a vote, as it was prejudiced.
At the same meeting, a PAN draft resolution was also unanimously voted and approved, which recommends that the Government implement policies to combat misleading advertising of cryptoassets on social media platforms.