Rwandan government orders banks to stop facilitating crypto-related transactions
The National Bank of Rwanda (NBR) has this to say that the country’s financial service providers are “prohibited from engaging in any crypto-related activity until a regulatory framework is established”. In a letter addressed to managing directors and CEOs of financial service providers, Soraya Hakuziareme, acting governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, suggested that the prohibition would help ensure “efficient and quality financial services”.
This warning from central banks against crypto-related activity in particular was published in 2018, despite Hakujiaremi acknowledging in his letter that Rwandan residents continue to trade digital assets such as bitcoin. According to the letter, according to the available data, “the Rwandan market has traded more than US$ 3 million since January 2020”.
Meanwhile, in that letter, Hakujiaremi sought to justify the central bank’s decision to block financial service providers from facilitating crypto currency-related transactions, stating that crypto asset activities are still crypto-related activities. lacks the ‘guarantees and safeguards associated with regulated financial services’. In this letter dated January 31, the acting governor cites the unregulated status of most crypto assets and how that leaves Rwandan users without the “guarantees and safeguards associated with regulated financial services.” How crypto investors have been defrauded elsewhere by fraudsters such as Ruja Ignatova of Onecoin and Gerald Cotton of the Quadriga crypto exchange.
Hakujiaremi’s letter also seeks to draw the attention of Rwandan crypto investors to the same decision that some regulators have taken against unregulated crypto entities. If we take the example, leading crypto exchange Binance, whose presence was spotted in Rwanda, is being investigated in the United States over allegations of money-laundering and financial conduct of the company due to weak consumer and investor protection mechanisms, according to the governor. has been banned by the Authority (FCA).
