The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organization that strives to combat money laundering and other illicit activities, has recently ruled that global cryptocurrency exchanges now have to share personal information about their clients, Coindesk reports.
This applies to a situation when one has to transfer money from one exchange to another.
Your name, please?
This rule is nothing new in the world of traditional finance since it applies to international banks that also exchange their customers’ data to mitigate risks.
From now on, crypto exchanges (they fall into the “virtual asset service providers” category) are required to accompany each transfer with the originator’s name, account number, physical address, etc.
FATF offers a list of recommendations on how to enforce these requirements. The most interesting part concerns the clampdown on various services that are able to hide the sender of the funds.
Those users that end up on the ‘bad guy’ list should be barred from performing any transactions.
Keeping them in check
If a certain country stubbornly refuses to comply with FATF’s requirement, it appears in serious danger of being blacklisted by the organization, thus becoming toxic for investors. Case in point: Iran.
According to FAFT, those exchanges that don’t follow the rules should be prohibited from conducting operations.
“If the VASP cannot manage and mitigate the risks posed by engaging in such activities, then the VASP should not be permitted to engage in such activities,” the document states.
As reported by U.Today, the FATF first announced its intentions to draft a set of rules for crypto exchanges as a means of preventing money laundering and terrorism back in September 2018.
Denys Serhiichuk
Tomiwabold Olajide
Gamza Khanzadaev
