The Securities Commission of The Bahamas has launched a consultation on draft amendments to anti-money laundering, counterterrorist financing and counterproliferation financing rules for all persons regulated under the Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act 2024. The proposals would align the framework with amendments to the Financial Transactions Reporting Act 2018 and strengthen requirements for transaction monitoring, unhosted wallets, sanctions compliance and outsourced technology services. Registrants would have to conduct continuous, real-time and risk-based monitoring across supported distributed ledgers and use blockchain analytics to score counterparties and unhosted wallet addresses. Systems would need to generate alerts for specified risk indicators, reconcile Travel Rule data with on-chain records and retain tamper-evident monitoring and investigation records. Potentially suspicious transfers would be temporarily held for internal review, while transactions involving unhosted wallets would have to be refused, suspended or terminated where required information is unavailable, links to illicit activity or sanctions are identified, or risks cannot be mitigated. The outsourcing proposals would leave registrants, their boards and senior management responsible for compliance. They would require initial and at least annual vendor due diligence, specified contractual access and audit rights, incident notification within 24 hours, advance regulatory notification of material arrangements, and tested continuity and exit plans. The draft also addresses targeted financial sanctions, prompt suspicious transaction reporting and prior commission approval for simplified due diligence procedures.

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