India to push FATF to Bring Online Gaming Platforms Under Money Laundering Framework

Indian authorities supposedly plan to impel the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to bring online gaming companies under the ambit of anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) framework.

Sources told Economic Times that India will again “place its case” at the upcoming meeting of the global anti-money laundering body in Paris. 

“India will again present its case on how the online gaming platforms were being misused and why these should be under the ambit of the global standard,” a senior official reportedly said.

The government is said to be concerned over such illegal laundering of funds through online gaming platforms such as Mahadev online book platform.

Internally, the centre has supposedly already kicked off discussions and is examining numerous avenues to make sure online gaming platforms “stringently” report anonymous transactions to the centre and strictly comply with know your customer (KYC) norms.

Another official supposedly said that the yet-to-be put together policy framework would look to address the “threat of money laundering” without ‘Stifling” the online gaming sector. 

Additionally, if the FATF moves ahead and brings the online gaming space under the AML|CFT framework, the sector will observe with Stringent mandates for reporting  Suspicious transactions and provide details of beneficial owners.

“We are concerned about the gaming sector as it has cross border implications as well, because money transfer can happen between jurisdictions and there can be gaming apps which are run from abroad which have Indian clientele,” another person familiar with the development reportedly said. 

The development comes at a time when authorities continue to blast multiple money laundering scams involving online gaming platforms. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), last year, unearthed the Mahadev betting scam, which bridged many websites and laundered money of Indians abroad via cryptocurrencies. 

In a bid to crack whip on this, the government has made it compulsory for go throwing online gaming companies to register in India. On top of that, the centre has also restricted numerous websites, operated from overseas, for not complying with provisions of anti-money laundering laws.