More African countries should consider crypto regulations — Yellow Card CEO

Chris Maurice, CEO of Yellow Card, a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in Africa has said that crypto regulations in countries across Africa “means a lot” and can encourage innovation.

The details

• Maurice, speaking at the US-Africa Business Summit which was held in Botswana in mid-July, told Bloombergthat regulations are needed to protect consumers from fraud and prevent crimes such as money laundering and terrorism financing.
• He added that most importantly, crypto regulations should promote innovation which will keep up with the growth rate of African economies.
• Countries such as Botswana, Nigeria, and South Africa are taking positive strides by seeking to establish regulatory frameworks for licensing crypto and other virtual assets, he added. According to him, these initiatives pave the way for fostering innovation within their individual economies.

Key quotes

Maurice told Bloomberg:

“It is the regulator’s job to encourage and promote technology that innovates [and] with countries like Botswana actually encouraging this technology to come here, it means quite a bit.”

Why this matters

• Regulation is slowly becoming the buzz word of the season in the African crypto space.
• Last week, Namibia signed its crypto regulations bill into law. While the bill officially recognized crypto and other virtual assets, it puts these assets and their providers under the control of a regulatory body to be determined by the government.
• In addition, Mariblock reported recently, that the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) declared that all exchanges operating in the country must obtain licenses by the end of the year.
• According to the FCSA Commissioner, Unathi Kamlana, regulations are important to protect consumers from ‘risks’ associated with using crypto products.
• Countries such as Kenya, Morocco, Zambia and Uganda and others are working on regulating virtual assets within their borders.
• While speaking on the on the BTCM Ponzi scheme that made away with several thousand Kenyan Shilling, Michael Kimani, president of the Blockchain Association of Kenya told told Mariblock that regulations can protect consumers from fraud.

“Generally, I think what is missing [in the Kenyan crypto space] is a consumer protection framework, which is difficult to establish because of the policy gaps. I think both go hand in hand. The poor state of the economy means people are vulnerable [to crypto fraud]. [It is] easy to fall prey to crypto-branded scams because the crypto industry is real, but bad actors take advantage of vulnerability and misinformation.”