United Kingdom's Economics and Finance Ministry (HM Treasury) said in a new policy document that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (Bitcoin) pose "low risk" for terrorist financing, CoinDesk reported.
The HM Treasury paper on money laundering and terrorist financing risks in 2017 stated: “While digital currencies could in theory be used to facilitate and finance terrorist activity, the lack of evidence of this occurring and the greater attractiveness of other methods mean that digital currencies continue to be assessed as low risk for terrorist financing.”
The country’s National Crime Agency (NCA) assessed the risk of digital currency use for money laundering to be relatively low, as well. “Although NCA deems it likely that digital currencies are being used to launder low amounts at high volume, there is little evidence of them being used to launder large amounts of money,” it said.
The report, however, expects the money laundering risks associated with digital currencies to grow in correlation with the increase in the technology's adoption as a payment method.
The report reads: "As the number of businesses accepting digital currency payments grows, there is an increasing risk of criminals using the currencies to launder funds without needing to cash out into non-digital, or 'fiat' currencies."
In terms of terrorist financing, the use of digital currencies is assessed to be "unlikely" to increase in the next five years.