Ireland’s New AML Strategy Brings ‘Enhanced Checks’ on Private Crypto Wallets

In brief

• Ireland published its first National Anti-Money Laundering Strategy on Thursday, with crypto-asset rules among the reforms it sets out.
• The final elements of the EU Transfer of Funds Regulation will bring enhanced checks on transfers involving private crypto wallets and stricter due diligence on overseas crypto firms.
• The strategy builds on a 30-point action plan published in June that promised enhanced safeguards around crypto-assets and digital finance.

Ireland published its first national anti-money laundering strategy on Thursday, including crypto measures targeting wallets held outside regulated firms.

Most of the EU Transfer of Funds Regulation has already been implemented in Ireland, with the Department of Finance saying that the remaining elements introduce new obligations for crypto-asset service providers, requiring "enhanced checks" on transfers involving private crypto wallets and stricter due diligence when dealing with overseas crypto firms.

That mechanism is the FATF travel rule, under which information on the originator and the beneficiary must accompany a transaction. The strategy document records that it arrived alongside MiCA, which created crypto-asset service providers as a category of regulated entity across the bloc.