Yiannos Ashiotis — registering global financial businesses on Cypriot soil | Expert Interview

Hi, everyone!

This video is of my conversation with Yiannos Ashiotis, the regulatory compliance and fund services leader at Grant Thornton (Cyprus) Ltd. He is one of the best specialists with an expertise in registering businesses on Cypriot soil and hence we discussed AML compliance, specific questions relating to working in Cyprus and a few general questions related to working in compliance.

Plus, I hope crypto-enthusiasts among you will be interested to hear his opinion on the future of Crypto in the world and how to start a completely legitimate Cryptocurrency exchange in Europe.

Hope you enjoy it!

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:06 Compliance as a profession
05:46 Looking for the best jurisdiction
14:26 Crypto in Cyprus
23:05 DeFi or not DeFi
32:28 One last question

More about us:

#AML
#crypto
#CySec
#Cyprus
#sumsub
#sumsubforexperts

[sumsubforexperts]

Hi! Crypto businesses are always in search of the most appropriate jurisdiction for their operation, given the specifics of their audience, their business presence, applicable regulations and financial conditions. Which jurisdictions would you keep in mind if you were to set up a crypto exchange?

[matthewnirenberg]

I mean no disrespect but this channel doesn't seem to discuss much for experts, it seems to be just a pro-AML/KYC lobbying channel (i.e. a pro large business only channel) - I say this based on every video on this channel so far. If you're going to flog AML/KYC instead of fighting it, at least make a video that shows the negative consequences of it - transparency of ownership and transparency of private asset ownership leading to kidnapping and murder - all AML/KYC proponents love to ignore this claiming "just hire security" which should always be a last resort; most people are ok with the relevant government knowing who owns what but that information should never be public for security reasons. Ask youself, why do you need to know what I own, what your neighbour owns? The answer is you don't need to know what they own as you aren't a government.

The only viable places to register any business is a place that has no personal income tax, low or no corporate income tax and no service provision licence - the licence doesn't prove anything other than you wasted money on courses and paperwork - what should matter is being good at what you want to do. No amount of extra courses or licences will prove that - for example in Australia literally being qualified isn't enough, you have to do annual courses and pay business service licence fees even though you're qualified and hold personal government issued licences just to work.

Any jurisdiction that has either of those is part of AML/KYC and thus only viable for large businesses. You can run 100% legal businesses from tax havens whilst still selling to the EU/EEA. Literally the cost of compliance with AML/KYC negates any benefits of being in the EU/EEA for anything less than a large business.

AML/KYC has always 100% failed to achieve what it claims to. What it does achieve (which I believe to be the real intent behind it) is to crush all sole traders and small to medium businesses - AML/KYC is a weapon against the little guy. Ironically its the big mega corporations who do all the money laundering all whilst lying and weaseling their way around AML/KYC. If you support small business and sole traders, you should be lobbying and working towards doing away with AML/KYC. The last reason AML/KYC was created was to create jobs in a world where automation is eliminating jobs, so a niche little 'cottage' industry was created.

In regards to regulation - its never been the job of the government to "protect investors", that's always been an excuse to dictate every facet of a service/business. Investors know that what they do has risks, they must decide if they're will to accept those risks or not. Registration of crypto wallets for example is utterly pointless, do you require registration of customers traditional wallets (the ones in their pockets) when they use cash? Nope!, Sure there might be cash limits but you don't have to register a traditional wallet.

The reason countries like Cyprus don't like crypto is because they don't control it and they see it taking over from traditional government controlled currencies. Sadly, this means that countries like Cyprus and all of CUNA will all go downhill and become failed states when the rest of the world embrace crypto and the reduction of red tape (paperwork and bureaucracy). If a country won't accept businesses that have any involvement with crypto, then such a country is anti-business as best practice in business is to accept payment in any form reasonable and if an investment business can invest in FOREX (which is highly unregulated - the foreign currencies aren't regulated in their respective countries) but not crypto then thats a recipe for failure.