🛁 Thailand🇹🇭: the Central Bank strengthens oversight of stablecoins

🛁 Thailand🇹🇭: the Central Bank strengthens oversight of stablecoins

The measure aims to strengthen anti-money laundering controls. Due to the speed of cross-border transfers, stablecoins have become a widely used method for moving large amounts of funds.

🔵 Background: one of Thailand's main challenges is the growing number of fraud schemes linked to organizations originating from China🇨🇳. The country continues to face widespread activity from scam call centers, and although there are no official estimates of the size of the underground economy, losses caused by scams are believed to have reached USD 3.4 billion during 2025.

🔵 Measures: The Bank of Thailand will work together with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to conduct audits of high-value stablecoin transactions, with particular attention to USDT, cash transactions, and foreign exchange operations.

🔵 What banks will monitor:

➡️ Exchange of large volumes of high-denomination banknotes for smaller denominations without a clear business justification.

➡️ Large cash transactions will require disclosure of the source of funds.

➡️ Cash deposits exceeding 5 million baht (USD 150,000) will also require full disclosure of relevant information.

🔵 Additional measures: as part of efforts to combat mule accounts, illicit funds, and suspicious activities, Thai banks introduced significant restrictions on opening new bank accounts during 2025 and froze 3 million existing accounts.

🔵 Regulatory landscape: although payments using digital assets and stablecoins remain prohibited in Thailand, cryptocurrency trading continues to be legal. At the same time, regulators have progressively tightened the rules governing crypto businesses. Currently, USDT/THB remains the most actively traded cryptocurrency pair in the country.

#news #Asia #China #crypto #scam

🌎 payplanet.com verified partner for LatAm, India🇮🇳 Turkey🇹🇷 @pay_planet