The European Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has published a draft report on virtual currencies and blockchain. The paper suggests creating a Task Force to deal with the challenges of the innovation.

The Task Force is to be led by the Commission to support regulatory work at EU and countries level related to the emergence of the blockchain applications. The report also suggests that Task Force is funded by the EU and appoints regulators and technical experts to monitor and assess blockchain applications. The staff of the Task Force will be entitled to recommend regulatory measures and address customers’ safety issues.

The report is prepared by Jakob von Weizsäcker, a member of EU Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs from Germany. The document highlights the low transaction and transfer costs of the virtual currencies and enhancement of the speed of payment system.

The European Council has recently agreed to develop new rules for virtual currencies exchange and wallet providers by the end of June. The changes will include amendments to the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD4) and the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

Sonya Belova