On January 16, the South African Reserve Bank — which is the country's central bank — issued a paper that asserts that the government has no plans to ban cryptocurrencies. This includes both cryptocurrency payments and trading. The paper, which is entitled "Consultation Paper on Policy Proposals for Crypto Assets," was completed in coordination with a number of government agencies, and it not only unequivocally states the government's intention not to ban cryptocurrencies but also proposes a certain amount of government regulations of them. Specifically, it calls for cryptocurrency businesses to comply with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act and its requirements relating to counter-terrorism financing and anti-money laundering. The paper further proposes that certain cryptocurrency businesses — such as exchanges, custodial services, payments services and ATMs that issue cryptocurrency — should have to register with what is called the FinTech Working Group. This intergovernmental group has been tasked with supporting local innovation in fintech while at the same time not interrupting nascent financial markets in the country. Many government agencies participated in the creation of the report apart from the bank. This includes the Financial Intelligence Centre, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, the National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service. All these agencies issued a joint statement that accompanied the report, and it stated that the public has until February 15 of this year to provide feedback to the paper. The South African government has been very actively involved with cryptocurrencies of late. Earlier this month, they established what they called a regulatory working group, which will focus on both digital currencies and blockchain technology. Tito Mboweni, who is the country's finance minister, has indicated that the group this year will issue a research paper related to the cryptocurrency industry. Previously, in June of last year, the central bank announced that they had successfully completed a test of a cryptocurrency-related proof-of-concept that created an interbank payment system. The system reportedly tokenizes fiat currencies and uses Quorum, which is a private blockchain based on Ethereum.