Vanuatu has passed laws to regulate digital assets and provide a licensing regime for crypto companies wanting to operate in the Pacific island nation, which a government regulatory consultant has called “very stringent.” 

The local parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act on March 26, giving crypto licensing authority to the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC) along with powers to enforce the Financial Action Task Force’s Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing and Travel Rule standards with crypto firms.

The VFSC has sweeping investigation and enforcement powers under the laws, with penalties stipulating fines of up to 250 million vatu ($2 million) and up to 30 years in prison.

“God help any scammer that goes into Vanuatu because you’ll go to jail,” Loretta Joseph, who consulted with the regulator on the laws, told Cointelegraph. “The laws are very stringent.”

“The thing is, we don’t want another FTX debacle,” she added, referring to the once Bahamas-based crypto exchange that collapsed in 2022 due to massive fraud committed by its co-founders, Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, along with other executives.

“Vanuatu is a small jurisdiction. Small jurisdictions are preyed on by the players that are looking for no regulation or light touch regulation,” Joseph said. “This is certainly not that.”

“I’m so proud of them to be the first country in the Pacific to actually take a position and do this,” she added. 

New Vanuatu law regulates slate of crypto companies

The law establishes a licensing and reporting framework for exchanges, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, crypto custody providers and initial coin offerings.

The VFSC said that the legislation doesn’t affect stablecoins, tokenized securities, and central bank digital currencies even though they “may in practice share some similarities with virtual assets.”

The legislation also allows for the VFSC’s commissioner to create a sandbox to allow approved companies to offer a variety of crypto services for a year, which can be renewed.

Joseph said Vanuatu “needed a standalone piece of legislation” that covered Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terror Financing requirements, as the country didn’t have existing laws suited to virtual assets.

The regulator said in a March 29 statement that it had developed the legislative framework after years of “assessing the risks associated with virtual assets,” and the laws would open “numerous opportunities for Vanuatu” and improve financial inclusion by allowing regulated services for crypto cross-border payments.

VFSC Commissioner Branan Karae had said in June that the bill was expected to pass that September, but Joseph said the legislation was “not something that was done lightly.” It had been in development since 2020 and was delayed due to changes in government, natural disasters and COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions.