Australian Committee Outlines Measures to Boost the Cryptocurrency Industry

Share This Post

Report Recommendations

Creating a regulatory framework for digital currency exchanges that includes capital adequacy, auditing, and responsible person testing as part of the Treasury’s overall strategy

Creating a digital asset custody or depository regime that meets basic Treasury portfolio criteria

Doing a digital asset token mapping effort in Australia to find the best method to characterise the various forms of digital asset tokens.

Bloomberg Reported today that Parliamentary committee studying the usage of digital assets says Australia’s cryptocurrency business requires a strong legislative and regulatory framework to compete with other global financial centres in this fast-growing area of finance..

The Select Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre stated in a draught report on Wednesday that such a framework is needed to protect consumers, stimulate investment, allow greater market competition, and create a system where innovation may flourish.

Andrew Bragg, a conservative Liberal senator and the committee’s head, said in an interview that the proposals represent “a significant effort to establish an Australian cryptocurrency framework that would allow us to compete with the U.K. and Singapore.” He also believes they would “break the back” of de-banking, the process of lenders cancelling accounts of customers deemed to be high-risk by the financial industry.

According to him, this is “killing far too many little Australian enterprises — and we simply can’t afford that to happen”.

To be implemented after next year’s federal election, Bragg wants his party’s ruling alliance to take the suggestions on board as policy as soon as possible.