Keeping Up With the Regulators — August 2019 Week #5

Your weekly briefing on what’s new in KYC/AML for FinTechs

Photo by Ilya Orehov on Unsplash

As promised, Fractal is sharing our weekly briefings to help FinTechs stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the KYC/AML regulatory space. In case you missed our last issue, here it is:

Keeping Up With the Regulators — August 2019 Week #4

Find this week’s briefing below:

Week 23.08.2019–30.08.2019

What’s cooking in the regulatory space?

• Bahamas: Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether money laundering investigations should be attached to investigations carried out by the police
• Bulgaria: Draft bill extends AML rules to cryptocurrency platforms, digital wallet providers and art galleries
• India: Aadhaar-based KYC enabled
• Malaysia: AML guidelines under revision by the central bank
• Switzerland: New guidance clarifies that AML regulations are applicable to exchanges, wallet providers and trading platforms
• UK: FCA issues final guidance on crypto assets
• USA: OFAC sanctions the crypto addresses of 3 Chinese nationals
• USA: FinCEN creates new Global Investigations Division to identify foreign money laundering threats

News

• The Basel AML Index ranks Estonia as the country with the lowest risk of money laundering
• Taiwan will rise to the top-tier ranking for AML efforts of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering
• Companies using the terms “crypto” or “blockchain” in business filings are denied banking services in the Netherlands
• Money laundering scandal results in a dramatic share price decline for Nordic banks
• FINMA approves banking licenses for the blockchain service firms Sygnum AG and SEBA

The AML’s Watch

• Deccan Chronicle Holding’s premises raided in AML probe
• MGSB directors plead guilty to charges of involvement in money laundering activities
• 25-year-old pled guilty to a $25 million money-laundering operation carried out through a cryptocurrency exchange and a bitcoin ATM
• Australia’s big banks can face penalties for AML breaches in the next 6 months

Add this to your knowledge folder

• Changes to the Canadian AML regime — impact on casino operators

Good reads

• Automation of the debt sales business — will banks be ditched any time soon?
• Boris Fomin speaks out to explain how Danske Bank was used to launder money from corruption, tax evasion and theft
• The evolution of AML: increased threats, improved regulation, and unprecedented regulatory scrutiny
• The AI arms race: criminals vs financial institutions
• The story of 1MDB —laundering money raised by Malaysia’s state-owned investment fund
• Ripple’s XRP is down 5 per cent and regulatory issues might be the cause of it
• A comparative analysis of suspicious transaction reports data across Europe

About the Author:

Catarina Veloso is a legal counsel at Fractal and co-chair of INATBA’s identity working group — Catarina specialized in energy law and focused on how blockchain technology can contribute to the management of electricity grids; but an unexpected(-ly happy) turn of events lead her to work closely with Fractal’s product team to remove all the friction while keeping all the compliance in a global KYC/AML onboarding solution.