EU plans 10000 euro limit on cash payments
Source: (
https://bit.ly/3BJjH7P)
The Council of the European Union proposed a cash limit of 10,000
EUR for all member states of the EU in order to fight money
laundering and terrorist financing.
The proposed legislation also requires providers of cryptocurrency
to verify "facts and information about their customers" if they make
transactions of 1,000 EUR or more.
"The EU continues its fight to protect EU citizens and the EU's
financial system against money laundering and terrorist financing,"
the press release of the European Council states.
Czech Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said that they intend to
"close loopholes" for criminals.
"Large cash payments beyond 10.000 will become impossible," Stanjura
said. "Trying to stay anonymous when buying or selling crypto-assets
will become much more difficult. Hiding behind multiple layers
of ownership of companies won't work anymore. It will even become
difficult to launder dirty money via jewellers or goldsmiths."
Whether cash limits prevent criminal activity remains questionable.
In 2016, German mainstream news outlet der Spiegel reported that
European countries like Portugal, Greece, Spain, and Belgium had
already introduced cash limits, some of them much lower than 10,000.
However, there was no noticeable reduction in criminal activity or the
"shadow economy" in these countries.
The "shadow economy" flourished much more in these countries than
in Germany, where there was no cash limit at the time.
Der Spiegel quotes Green Party financial expert Gerhard Schick, who
said the cash limit is "an absolute sham" and it does "not help in the
slightest" to "cut off terrorists' means of subsistence or arms deals."
According to der Spiegel, "neither the mafia nor terrorists nor
international arms or drug traffickers probably rely on walking
around with bundles of banknotes," since "they have their own
money transfer systems."
Furthermore, "anyone can set up anonymous shell companies for
a small fee - anywhere in the world," and "pay through them by
check, credit card or bank transfer," and be in complete compliance
with the law.
"Notaries and lawyers also offer anonymous accounts through which
black money can be transacted," der Spiegel wrote.
Many fear that anonymous cash is being slowly abolished and replaced
by digital currencies. In Nigeria, the government recently limited cash
withdrawals in order to push people into using the Central Bank's
digital currency, which the Central Bank also plans to link to
a digital ID system.
