India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes has revised its global tax reporting framework to bring certain crypto assets, central bank digital currencies, and digital currency products within the scope of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and the Common Reporting Standard, according to The Economic Times, as cited by ChainCatcher. The update also tightens due diligence requirements for financial institutions. Under the revised framework, banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, custodians, and other investment entities are given guidance on identifying reportable accounts, verifying tax residency status, and filing financial information. The change broadens the reporting perimeter beyond traditional financial accounts and adds compliance expectations for institutions handling covered digital assets. The report said financial institutions must also apply enhanced due diligence to high-value accounts with balances above $1 million. The move adds a more detailed compliance layer to India’s tax information reporting system and sets out how covered entities should handle account classification and disclosure obligations under the updated rules.

A long-form essay published by PANews argues that the largest and most effective money-laundering infrastructure has never primarily lived in back alleys, underground remittance shops, or crypto rails. Instead, the article says, it has historically been built into licensed banks, private banking structures, correspondent networks, dollar clearing channels, and legal settlements with regulators. Using a string of well-known cases — including Ferdinand Marcos, Riggs National Bank, Wachovia, HSBC, Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Danske Bank, and 1MDB — the author compares the scale of underground finance with the volumes handled by mainstream institutions and concludes the gap is enormous. The essay also places USDT and stablecoins inside a broader three-stage laundering framework: placement, layering, and integration. In that framing, stablecoins improve the logistics of moving and dispersing funds, but they do not replace the traditional financial system’s role in giving money a usable legal backstory. According to the piece, that final step still happens where banks, wealth managers, clearing systems, and courts meet. The article’s central claim is blunt: the decisive question is not who can move money the fastest, but who has the authority to let it re-enter the formal economy as if its origins were clean.