Crypto-funded debit card in Central African Republic

The Central African Republic operates no national virtual-asset licensing or supervision and its land-tokenisation platform requires only an email address and a crypto payment with no identity verification, while Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM art. 42 and the COSUMAF Règlement Général of 23 May 2023 impose prior authorisation duties that Bangui has not implemented.

No Règlement n° 01/17/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 30 March 2017 exists; CEMAC AML/CFT law ran from Règlement n° 01/03-CEMAC-UMAC of 4 April 2003 through Règlement n° 02/10 of 2 October 2010 and Règlement n° 01/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 11 April 2016 to Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 20 December 2024, each adopted by the UMAC Comité Ministériel rather than by BEAC.

The Central African Republic is bound by CEMAC community law, which prevails over conflicting national texts under article 44 of the CEMAC Treaty, and the AML/CFT and market règlements are adopted by the UMAC Comité Ministériel while BEAC holds the exclusive right of issue and COBAC supervises credit institutions.

Virtual-asset service providers operating in the Central African Republic are assujettis under article 6 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM and must file suspicious-transaction reports with the Agence Nationale d'Investigation Financière under article 105, whatever the amount involved.

The Central African Republic's financial intelligence unit is the Agence Nationale d'Investigation Financière (ANIF), created on 22 February 2005 and juridically operational from 3 December 2008; CENTIF is the UEMOA designation and no CEMAC state uses it.

Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD): Applying enhanced measures for higher-risk categories, such as politically exposed persons (PEPs), cross-border correspondent relationships, or transactions involving high-risk jurisdictions or products.

Ongoing Monitoring: Continuously monitoring the business relationship and transactions undertaken throughout the course of the relationship to ensure they are consistent with the VASP's knowledge of the customer, their business, and risk profile.

Ultimate Beneficial Ownership (UBO): Identifying and taking reasonable measures to verify the identity of the beneficial owner(s) of customers, especially for legal persons and arrangements.

Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 20 décembre 2024 applies directly in the Central African Republic and lists virtual-asset service providers among the assujettis at art. 6, so the confidentiality attaching to a déclaration de soupçon filed with the ANIF binds them; the Central African Republic has enacted no national tipping-off rule of its own.

No CEMAC instrument numbered 04/22/CM/UMAC/CM exists; the CEMAC text governing virtual asset service providers is Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 20 December 2024 on the prevention and repression of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, which defines actif virtuel and prestataire de services sur actifs virtuels at article 2 and lists PSAV among the assujettis at article 6.

Article 42 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM sets the occasional-transaction threshold for virtual asset service providers at 500 000 FCFA, above which reinforced customer due diligence applies; the CEMAC framework states the threshold in FCFA and not as EUR 1 000.

Article 42 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM requires the originating virtual asset service provider to obtain and retain accurate information on the originator, to transmit it to the beneficiary PSAV, and to keep it under the article 39 retention rule; the regulation imposes the obligation by reference to the required accurate information rather than by listing date and place of birth as a distinct field.

Article 42 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM requires the beneficiary virtual asset service provider to obtain and retain accurate originator and beneficiary information and to make it available to the competent authorities on request.

Article 42 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM requires the originating virtual asset service provider to transmit the required originator information to the beneficiary virtual asset service provider immediately and in a secure manner.

Article 39 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM requires assujettis, including virtual asset service providers, to retain customer identity documents, transaction records and related material for a minimum of ten years from account closure or the end of the business relationship, not five years.

Implement risk-based procedures to identify and verify the identity of customers, especially for higher-risk transactions or relationships.

The Central African Republic's crypto framework is Loi n° 22.004 du 22 avril 2022 régissant la cryptomonnaie en République Centrafricaine, not a 'Sango Act' and not Loi n° 22.007; Loi n° 23.005 du 6 avril 2023 amended it to remove legal-tender status and the state convertibility guarantee, and a separate 2023 statute opened the tokenisation of land and natural resources.

Electronic money and payment services in the Central African Republic are governed by Règlement n° 04/18/CEMAC/UMAC/COBAC du 21 décembre 2018 relatif aux services de paiement dans la CEMAC, adopted by the UMAC Ministerial Committee with COBAC as prudential supervisor; BEAC is the common central bank of the union but issues no stablecoin or virtual-asset instrument.

The franc CFA is the sole legal tender across the six CEMAC states under the monetary cooperation convention of 5 July 1996 as amended on 25 June 2008, and the conflict with Central African law ended on 23 March 2023 when the National Assembly removed the obligation to accept cryptocurrency and made bitcoin a reference cryptocurrency rather than an official currency.

Article 13 of Loi n° 22.004 du 22 avril 2022 creates the Agence Nationale de Régulation des Transactions Électroniques, and article 17 requires wallet providers and exchange platforms to register with it; there is no National Agency for the Regulation of Cryptocurrencies, no article 9 founding provision and no Sango Act.

Electronic-money issuers and payment institutions in CEMAC are authorised and prudentially supervised under Règlement n° 04/18/CEMAC/UMAC/COBAC du 21 décembre 2018, with COBAC holding the same control and sanctioning powers over them as over other supervised institutions; BEAC issues no such licence.

Reference: Règlement N°02/18/CEMAC/UMAC/CM (Articles 22, 23, 24).

Lack of Enforcement and Clarity: The practical implementation and enforcement of CAR's Sango Act, especially in light of BEAC's stance, remain largely untested and unclear. The ANRC's operational capacity and inter-agency coordination with BEAC are critical but largely undefined.

BEAC and COBAC directed their April and May 2022 response at the Central African Republic's Loi n° 22.004 du 22 avril 2022 régissant la cryptomonnaie, and the Republic repealed that law's legal-tender and guaranteed-convertibility provisions in March 2023 as a prior action for its IMF Extended Credit Facility.

BEAC convened a working group on 29 April 2022, one week after Loi n° 22.004 was promulgated, and COBAC adopted Décision D-2022/071 on 6 May 2022 barring supervised institutions from crypto-asset activity.

IMF Country Report No. 23/155 of May 2023 records macro-fiscal, financial-stability and integrity risks from the April 2022 crypto legislation and from project Sango, holds that the legal-tender grant violated BEAC's exclusive right of issue in the monetary union, and conditions the 38-month Extended Credit Facility on repeal of the legal-tender and convertibility provisions.

The Central African tax treatment of crypto rests on Loi n° 22.004 du 22 avril 2022 itself, whose article 8 exempts cryptocurrency exchanges from tax, article 16 taxes the trader's profit and article 7 permits payment of tax in cryptocurrency through State-recognised platforms; the Code général des impôts published by the Ministry of Finance carries no provision on digital assets.