Safeguarding human rights in European financial regulation
Over the past few months, the European Banking Authority has conducted a consultation regarding guidelines related to the assessment of risk factors associated with crypto-assets. What should one pay attention to in such a case? We took a brief look at the consultation and responded that the term “human rights” is not mentioned. Privacy is only discussed in terms of … Read more
In the United Kingdom, a highly disputed obligation will come into effect next week for businesses engaged in cryptocurrency-related transfers and trading. They will be required, under the so-called Travel Rule for crypto, to transmit a substantial amount of individual customer data to recipients in various countries, with no discernible added value. To prevent the infringement on these fundamental rights, … Read more
On August 24th, after a long preparation and run-up Simon Lelieveldt and Jacob Boersma established HRIF.EU as a formal foundation and legal entity under Dutch law. Why? Well, everyone is familiar with the phenomenon in their own environment. Your bank account gets blocked. Afterwards, you’re asked to provide various pieces of information within very short deadlines. If you don’t comply, … Read more
This morning, the founder of the Foundation Human Rights in Finance.EU, Simon Lelieveldt, sent the following message to (the staff of) Minister Kaag of Finance. “With gratitude for the granted additional time to respond, I hereby send my response to the consultation Implementation Act VO (2023/1113) on money transfers and transfers of crypto assets, along with related information.” In this … Read more
Financial institutions need to respect en promote the proper application of fundamental human rights. We all agree on that. But when we hear financial institutions explaining that they abide with the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human rights (UNGPs) in the context of the finance sector, they mostly mean to say they will check whether their financial products do … Read more