Project Update
OSCE helps National Bank of Georgia fight money-laundering in virtual assets sector
- Issued on:
- Issued by:
- Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities
- Fields of work:
- Economic activities
On 18-19 December in Tbilisi, Georgia, the OSCE organized a two-day specialized training aimed at strengthening the capacity of the National Bank of Georgia to address money-laundering risks in the virtual asset sector.
Participants exchanged experience and engaged in practical sessions on supervision of virtual asset service providers (VASPs), on-site inspections, transaction monitoring, and anti-money-laundering controls.
Participants discussed practical challenges related to on-site supervision of virtual asset service providers, including supervisory planning, inspection techniques and follow-up measures.
To understand transaction flows and identify potential illicit activity, participants addressed VASP risk scoring, business-wide risk assessments, supervisory transaction monitoring, and the use of open-source blockchain explorers.
Key sessions addressed the regulatory challenges of asset tokenization and stablecoins. Participants discussed establishing strong anti-money laundering safeguards and mitigation strategies to prevent these digital assets from being exploited for illicit finance, supported by case studies and international supervisory experience.
The training was implemented as part of the OSCE project “Innovative Policy Solutions to Mitigate Money-Laundering Risks of Virtual Assets”, funded by Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States.