Bison Bank – a bank based in Portugal – acquired permission on the behalf of the Portuguese Central Bank (also called Banco de Portugal) to run as a VASP (virtual asset service provider), making the initial bank across the country to be granted the permission by the regulatory agency. On Thursday, the virtual-asset list of Banco de Portugal taking into account the virtual asset providers was updated by it with the addition of Bison Digital Assets turning into the fifth certified exchange for the cryptocurrencies across the country.
The firm is exclusively developed to run under the management of Bison Bank, counted to be completely held on the behalf of a Hong Kong-based private capital company in China, and will place its crypto facilities to entertain the consumers with high net worth, as reported by the local media. In April previous year, laws were constructed to regulate crypto exchanges under the proper licensing executed by the country’s central bank.
Later in 2021’s June, the licenses were given to the crypto exchanges including Criptoloja and Mind The Coin to operate throughout the country. In March of the last year, the regulator offered the earliest VASP license including all categories to Utrust, permitting the exchange to provide crypto for crypto swaps, transactions to wallet addresses, as well as for storage and custody of private keys as the prominent things. An all-categories-based license has additionally been granted to Bison Bank.
For a considerable time, Portugal has been considered to be a crypto-favoring nation and a haven in terms of crypto taxation. No implementation of individual taxes as well as capital gains exists over cryptocurrency until it is a sole income of an individual, because Portugal categorizes crypto as a payment or currency type, rather than being an asset.
In 2020’s April, the country constructed a strategy to develop ZLTs (technological Free Zones), regions where businesses can examine the services and products, with the country delimiting that it was pursuing examining blockchain technology as included in its digital transformation strategy.
In 2021’s October, the government of Portugal declared that it was involving public as well as private sector-based businesses and experts to construct a working group that will form a National Blockchain Strategy. Thorough research has been made by the group on the possibility for the country to implement technology as well as clarification of regulatory conditions.
