EU to intensify checks on Bitcoin, postpaid cards to fight terrorist act

The European Commission can propose by the top of Gregorian calendar month stricter rules on postpaid cards and virtual currencies in a very bid to cut back anonymous payments and curb the funding of terrorist act, documents discharged on Tuesday showed.

Responding to attacks in Paris last November by monotheism State militants, the Commission is additionally considering imposing controls on bank transfers inside the EU that area unit presently not monitored through the arguable EU-US Terrorist funding trailing Programme (TFTP).

"We should bring to a halt terrorists' access to funds and modify authorities to higher track money flows to stop devastating attacks like those in Paris," EU Commission vice chairman Valdis Dombrovskis same in a very statement.

Brussels intends to curb terrorists' use of all means that of payments, together with money and banking transactions, however can at first focus its regulative work on postpaid cards and virtual currencies, of that Bitcoin is out and away the foremost used with over eighty p.c of the capitalization.

"There appears to be a risk that virtual currencies is also employed by terrorist organisations to hide money transactions, as these is dispensed a lot of anonymously," a Commission document same.

Prepaid cards raise an equivalent kind of issues as their users don't seem to be perpetually known. The French authorities have additionally evidenced their use by the Paris attackers.

Prepaid cards area unit issued by a large vary of operators together with banks exploitation major networks, like Visa (V.N) and Mastercard (MA.N). they're completely different from debit and credit cards as a result of they have to be loaded before payments is created, however will carry substantial amounts of cash.

For each Bitcoin and postpaid cards, the Commission can propose new rules by the top of Gregorian calendar month forcing the identification of their users.

Users of virtual currencies might got to offer personal information once exchanging Bitcoin for real currencies. customers is also obligated to supply their identity once shopping for postpaid cards, a move that's presently not perpetually needed across the EU.

The municipal government falls wanting what was requested by France, that asked for caps on amounts which will be loaded onto postpaid cards and limits on the conversion of virtual currencies into real currencies.

MORE CHECKS ON BANK TRANSFERS?

The EU executive's set up foresees a variety of alternative measures to be enforced by the top of 2017, together with doable common rules to freeze terrorist assets across the EU and stricter checks on money transfers involving some non-EU countries.

Brussels also will assess whether or not it's possible to line up a ecu programme to trace terrorist funds, on the lines of the TFTP, that has long been opposed by EU lawmakers and privacy campaigners as a result of it permits widespread checks on consumers' bank transfers.