Last Monday 14th the Thematic Seminar “Cryptocurrencies: Opportunities and Challenges. Three perspectives”, took place, organized by the Chamber of Deputies Finance Committee. The presentation “Criptoactives and Financial Stability” made by the Chilean Central Bank (BCCh) was the main attraction, carried out by its President, Mario Marcel. It considered that while cryptoactives present risks, they also have potential benefits. That is why the Central Bank opened the door to future regulations. Furthermore the Minister of Economy, Felipe Larraín said they were working in their development. Likewise, the Internal Revenue Service (SII) decided that virtual currencies should not pay VAT.

The first part of the presentation was focused on the risks that these assets entail. There are three main ones: they do not have support and in many cases their value only comes from the trust of the users; there are no uniform international or national regulations to delimit a predictable horizon; and its sale is a high-risk activity in itself because its volatility can lead to sidereal gains or total losses.

However, in the second part of the presentation, Marcel pointed out that the current scenario shows this market is developing strongly in Chile. For this reason, the Central Bank opens the door for the change of regulations. They consider that the benefits of seriously allowing and regulating this activity would be multiple. First, it would stimulate the Chilean financial system, inserting new assets that allow greater financing. Likewise, the regulation would provide these assets with greater reliability and security.

That is why the Central Bank report concludes that while not all FinTech innovation should be regulated, there are good reasons to regulate some of them (in the immediate term, crowdfunding and the activities associated with cryptoactives). Referring to this, the Economy Minister said last Wednesday 16th that they are working on cryptocurrencies, together with the Financial Stability Board, where the Central Bank and the Commission for the Financial Market are present, to advance in a regulation.