On 21 April 2020, the Dutch Minister of Finance submitted the Repair Act Financial Markets 2020 (Herstelwet financiële markten 2020, the 2020 Repair Act) to the Dutch Parliament. The 2020 Repair Act aims to repair deficiencies and omissions that have occurred in the implementation of European directives and regulations in the field of financial markets.
A number of the proposed changes are related to the implementation of the Act implementing the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) (Implementatiewet wijziging vierde anti-witwasrichtlijn). 5MLD provides, among other things, that the integrity of ultimate beneficial owners of trust offices, money exchange offices, check exchange offices, custody wallet providers, virtual currency and fiduciary currency exchange service providers and gambling providers must be beyond doubt and that they must be suitable. This should prevent those parties from using such institutions for money laundering, terrorist financing or other criminal purposes. The 2020 Repair Act aims to implement the requirement under 5MLD for ultimate beneficial owners of custodial wallet providers and service providers for exchanging virtual currencies and fiduciary currencies.
In addition, the 2020 Repair Act provides for a number of other (minor, more technical) amendments in relation to, among others, the following EU directives and regulations:
- the revised Payment Services Directive;
- the Capital Requirements Regulation;
- the recast Markets in Financial Instruments Directive; and
- the Benchmarks Regulation.
