International standards for crypto-assets: the FATF, the Basel Committee and the FSB

Overview for education, not legal advice. Rules change — check the official sources. Last reviewed 20 October 2026.

Why international standards matter

Crypto-assets move across borders easily, so rules in one country can be undermined by gaps in another. International standard-setters try to narrow those gaps by agreeing on common approaches. Their standards are not laws in themselves: they take effect when countries write them into national legislation. But they carry weight through peer review, public assessments and, in the case of anti-money laundering, the risk of being publicly listed as a jurisdiction with strategic deficiencies.

Many of the rules described in our regional briefs — the EU travel rule, Japan's transfer information requirements, Singapore's AML notices — trace back to these standards.

FATF: Recommendation 15 and the travel rule

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sets the global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards. In October 2018 it amended its Recommendation 15, on new technologies, and added definitions of virtual asset and virtual asset service provider (VASP) to its glossary. In June 2019 it adopted an Interpretive Note setting out what countries must do:

• assess and mitigate the risks of virtual asset activities;
• license or register VASPs and supervise them for anti-money laundering compliance;
• require VASPs to apply preventive measures such as customer due diligence, record-keeping and suspicious transaction reporting;
• apply the requirements of Recommendation 16 — the travel rule — so that originator and beneficiary information accompanies virtual asset transfers.

The FATF allows countries to apply a de minimis threshold of USD/EUR 1,000 for some travel rule requirements; some jurisdictions, including the EU, chose not to use one. In October 2021 the FATF published updated guidance on its risk-based approach, covering topics such as stablecoins, peer-to-peer transactions and how the definition of VASP applies to decentralised arrangements. It publishes regular updates on how far countries have implemented these standards, which have repeatedly shown that implementation is uneven.

The Basel Committee: how banks treat crypto exposures

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision sets global standards for bank capital. In December 2022 it published a standard on the prudential treatment of cryptoasset exposures, which sorts crypto-assets into groups:

• Group 1a — tokenised versions of traditional assets, treated broadly like the underlying assets;
• Group 1b — crypto-assets with effective stabilisation mechanisms that meet strict classification conditions;
• Group 2 — all other crypto-assets, which face much more conservative treatment, including a risk weight of 1,250% for those that do not meet hedging recognition criteria, and a limit on a bank's total exposure to this group.

The Committee amended the standard in 2024. Jurisdictions are implementing it at different speeds, and the Committee has said it keeps the treatment of crypto-assets under review.

The FSB: a framework for overall regulation

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) coordinates financial regulation among G20 jurisdictions. In July 2023 it finalised a global regulatory framework for crypto-asset activities, consisting of high-level recommendations for crypto-asset activities and markets and revised recommendations for global stablecoin arrangements. The central principle is "same activity, same risk, same regulation": crypto-asset activities should be regulated in line with the risks they pose, just like comparable traditional activities.

IOSCO: market integrity and consumer protection

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published policy recommendations for crypto and digital asset markets in November 2023. They address conflicts of interest in firms that combine several functions, market manipulation and insider dealing, custody and the protection of client assets, cross-border cooperation, and disclosures to retail customers.

Other standard-setters

• The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and IOSCO published guidance in 2022 on how international principles for financial market infrastructures apply to systemically important stablecoin arrangements.
• The OECD developed the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), a standard for the automatic exchange of tax information on crypto-asset transactions between tax authorities. The EU implements it through DAC8.
• The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) researches the tokenisation of money and financial assets, including projects run with central banks.

How the standards reach national law

The table shows typical links, not a complete list. Each regional brief describes how its jurisdiction has implemented these standards in more detail.

Overview for education, not legal advice. Rules change — check the official sources. Last reviewed 20 October 2026. Nothing here is an offer or a recommendation to use any crypto-asset service.