The Colombian government will call on the local financial system to carry out tests of transactions with cryptocurrencies. This was announced by the presidential economic adviser Víctor Muñoz, on the morning of this Wednesday, September 16.
Through Twitter, Muñoz explained that the Financial Superintendency of Colombia (Superfinanciera) will make the call “for the financial system to test cash in and cash-out transactions with crypto assets.”
This will occur as part of the regulatory sandbox for the financial technology (FinTech) sector, said a government spokesperson. The sandbox decree was approved last Monday by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, after having been submitted for comments.
The tests to be convened by the Superfinancial will allow us to have “evidence for an intelligent regulatory framework, based on experience, data, and knowledge”, in the opinion of the former minister for Innovation and Digital Transformation in the South American country.
The scope of the call or any tentative date for testing cryptocurrency transactions is unknown. The decree does not even mention cryptocurrencies, so it does not shed any further light on what will happen to this industry.
In February of this year, there were some issues related to the decree for the creation of the regulatory sandbox pending comments. At that time, the lack of cryptocurrencies or even companies in the area, such as exchanges, unleashed doubts in the cryptocurrency environment in Colombia.
Representatives of various exchanges were reluctant about the sandbox and its potential impact on the activity of cryptocurrency companies. In general, for various actors in the ecosystem, crypto-assets were in a gray area in Colombian territory.
Expectations and doubts towards the regulatory sandbox in Colombia
Among the ecosystem personalities who expressed their doubts in February was Arley Lozano, alias Vakano. The CEO of Panda Exchange commented to this medium on that occasion that Colombia had been presenting itself as a country at the forefront of technology, but there were many obstacles for the sector.
Now, Lozano himself responded to Muñoz’s post wishing that the call of improvements in the conditions of cryptocurrency companies in the country must be fulfilled. Lozano explained: “Hopefully because at the rate we are going. It’s easier to be a bandit here than to work with cryptocurrencies in Colombia.”
About this, Mauricio Tovar, co-director of InTIColombia Research Group, welcomed the announcement, the Colombian Fintech company association also expressed itself optimistically. “The time has come to use this beneficial tool for the Fintech ecosystem, and we started with crypto assets,” the organization wrote on its Twitter.
On the other hand, the director of the NGO Fundación Bitcoin Colombia, Carlos Mesa, showed a little more skeptical view, saying: “We hope the call will be very soon and that it welcomes the companies already established”.
The ecosystem is waiting on the implications of the sandbox, and the Colombian government has flirted in several ways with the development of blockchains, even publishing a guide on the use of blockchains for the public sector and offering financial investment for companies in this industry and other tech entrepreneurship.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
