Cryptocurrencies

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I will have to write to my noble friend with the precise answer to that question, but I can say that there were discussions at the G7 yesterday, in part on this issue, following which we are considering how the UK along with its allies can prevent crypto assets emerging as loopholes to evade sanctions. Also, at an international level we will seek to intensify our lobbying efforts to drive improved anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing regulation, licensing and supervision across other jurisdictions, as well as the UK.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, at this moment, thanks to economic sanctions, ordinary Russians effectively cannot transfer from roubles into currencies such as dollars and pounds, but they can move into crypto if they are not one of the named sanctioned individuals. There are exceptions: the exchange Coinbase has shut Russia out entirely, and so have some others. Binance has not and, notably, is registered in the Cayman Islands. On Monday, the Minister said she would look to talk to those exchanges and make sure that they understood that they had to follow the advice of the Ukrainian Government and shut out Russia. Has she done so, and why are the Cayman Islands not co-operating?