Crowdfunding platforms now required to report transactions

Canada has become one of the first countries in the world to require online crowdfunding platforms to report to its anti-money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, government officials told a special committee examining the truck convoy protest and the steps the government took to end it.

Finance department officials said new regulations went into effect last week, adding crowdfunding platforms and some payment processing companies to the list of companies obliged to report large or suspicious transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, Canada's financial intelligence unit.

Julian Brazeau, director general of the Finance department's financial crimes and security division, said to his knowledge Canada is the first country to require crowdfunding platforms to report transactions to a body like FINTRAC.

The move means that some large donations over $10,000 to Canadian fundraising campaigns hosted by online crowdfunding companies like GoFundMe or GiveSendGo, or which the platform thinks may be suspicious, could now be reported to FINTRAC and then potentially be flagged to police. The power of crowdfunding companies to raise money was in the spotlight earlier this year after organizers of the truck convoy protest. the government said the international Financial Action Task Force has identified crowdfunding platforms "as an emerging area of risk for terrorist financing.