Dominique Bourrinet, Legal Director at Société Générale group, and Etienne Mauret, responsible for the payment methods and banking products, published an article about the legal status of bitcoin currency in which they argue that international regulation is needed for the digital currency.

The article appeared on the LesEchos.fr media website. The legal professionals did not elaborate on the proposed international law and did not propose any specific procedures for introducing it.

Bourrinet and Mauret cite the French Monetary and Financial Code claiming that from the French law perspective bitcoin does not fall under any known category: it is neither a currency nor a payment method nor an electronic currency. It is stated that the issue of VAT application to bitcoin is still to be resolved.

The article also mentions the report issued in July by the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance. This document outlines regulations for financial entities and bitcoin users to be adopted in the country by the end of the year and clarifies the present status of bitcoin in the French tax system. The Ministry's regulatory document proposes to regulate digital currency platforms at the European level making it mandatory to verify user identities and funds provenance for each transaction.

“Nevertheless, the efforts of the French authorities however laudable they are did not prevent certain bitcoin agents to operate in those countries where the regulation is less obvious. Therefore, we cannot but hope that the international legal framework will appear soon in order to regulate effectively this new currency,” the bank representatives conclude.

Société Générale is one of the three largest banking companies in France with €1.3 trillion in assets. In July, the bank was looking for an “IT Developer on Bitcoin, Blockchains & Crypto-Currencies” on a 12-month contract basis. The person was to work in the London office of the bank, developing cryptocurrency protocols and gathering “quantitative information on what is really happening in the cryptocurrency world”.

Aliona Chapel