The Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA) has extended a deadline for a Consultation Paper on Providing Money Services (PMS) framework until 31 December 2024. Once we receive your comments, we shall consider if any refinements are required to this proposal.
The initial consultation period was set until 23 October 2024. However, given the importance of the framework and potential consequences of certain policy measures proposed to the industry, AFSA expects to collect more feedback from a wider number of stakeholders and, therefore, decided to extend the consultation period until the end of December 2024.
Specifically, the framework aims to promote innovations in the AIFC by proposing to use digital assets for payment purposes within the perimeter of money services providers. If accepted, this approach might have wider implications for providing financial services with digital assets and will result in the expanding of the regulatory perimeter of AFSA by embracing more types of financial services (e.g. the proposed requirement on digital asset self-custody service providers to be licenced in the AIFC). Another related proposal is on defining the scope of the activity of Providing Money Services in relation to Digital Assets, as it aims to cover money services related to both fiat and digital assets.
Another proposal where AFSA considers that feedback would contribute for the framework is where the paper proposes to extend the scope of money services beyond the existing services and thus offers to include the following: acquiring of payment transactions[1], payment initiation[2], account information[3], providing or operating of a payment account and arranging of currency exchange[4]. In addition to the above, in the proposal we offer to distinguish what constitutes providing money services and what doesn’t as this distinction has raised multiple questions and requests for clarification.
However, to have a comprehensive and holistic view, we suggest that market participants review the entire framework and get acquainted with all public consultation questions as per the link below.
The proposals in this paper will be of interest to current or potential applicants, who are seeking to engage in money services activities from the AIFC, ancillary service providers and professional advisors.
During the public consultation, both existing and potential AIFC participants, as well as other stakeholder are invited to comment on the questions outlined in the Consultation Paper.
AFSA prefers to receive comments by email at [email protected].
The Consultation Paper may be accessed via this link:https://orderly.myafsa.com/articles/consultation-paper-afsa-f-ce-2024-0001-from-23-september-2024-on-on-providing-money-services-framework
Reference:
The Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA) is the independent regulator of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), which is established in accordance with the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On the Astana International Financial Centre” for the purposes of regulating financial services and related activities in the AIFC. AFSA administers the AIFC Regulations and Rules and is responsible for the authorisation, registration, recognition and supervision of financial firms and market institutions in the AIFC.
Over 3300 firms from over 80 countries are registered in the AIFC. These firms provide banking, insurance, investment, professional and other services. The range of financial services offered at the AIFC is comparable to the list of services available in long-established financial centers of the world, such as London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and others. www.afsa.kz
The Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) is an independent jurisdiction with a favourable legal and regulatory environment and a developed infrastructure for starting and doing business, attracting investment, creating jobs and developing Kazakhstan's economy. https://aifc.kz/
Contact information:
Public Relations and Communications Division of AFSA: +7 (717) 264 73 43; +7 7172 61-37-45 email: [email protected]
[1] Facilitating transactions on behalf of merchants, allowing them to accept payment methods like credit or debit cards from customers (e.g. accepting payments for online shopping etc.)
[2] An online service that is usually more user-friendly and/or more convenient provided by a fintech firm that lets a customer start a payment from their account at another financial service provider (e.g. bank)
[3] A service that allows to aggregate financial information (account balance, transaction history etc.) from several financial services providers (e.g. banks)
[4] Facilitating for clients currency exchange services by engaging entities that are permitted to provide such currency exchange services under the AIFC Rules on Currency Regulation and Provision of Information.
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