KYC or not KYC?

How frustrated you feel when you have to go through passport control and security check at the airport? I bet you casually pass, present your passport while browsing your phone or thinking about what to buy in Duty-Free.
Because this has become a routine like 20 years ago and many of us don’t remember the way it was before security check was introduced.

So why pretty much the same KYC check still causes frustration to many users? The quick answer is because it is relatively new.

Cryptocurrency has been around for a decade. It quickly went from digital currency only known to a bunch of geeks to the billion-dollar industry.

If we speak technology-wise for the past 10 years we went from iPhone 4 to iPhone 11, from numeric passcode to facial recognition, from traditional banking to fully digital.

Which means the progress is inevitable and technology development is unstoppable. Same applies to cryptocurrency. If we want to see mass adoption and official recognition of digital currencies we must accept the fact that crypto will go nowhere without KYC and ALM procedures.

Many frustrated crypto enthusiasts would now rise and object, bringing up the original vision of crypto as anonymous non-regulated money. We won’t argue with this vision, any major innovations in finance, music and even fashion used to be rebellious at some stage. But rebellious means available to a limited circle of followers, which conflicts with the idea of mass adoption. Majority of people would prefer safety and stability when it comes to finance. And KYC is one of the steps to the safety of your funds.

Here are some facts that will help you to stop seeing KYC as a total frustration and learn more about what happens when you pass verification with Mercuryo.

How does the regular crypto exchange user benefit from KYC?

• If you use your bank card to buy crypto KYC verifies if the card is being used by a legitimate owner. There’s no secret that there’s a huge dark market where stolen card details are sold in bulk. Hacking the 3 digit code on the back of the card is also not a problem for skilled criminals. This way verifying a cardholder’s name against the government-issued photo ID is a measure to protect you from the illicit use of your lost, stolen or compromised card. This is why we imposed the 72h time limit for crypto withdrawal for non-verified users. In case the card was stolen and used by fraudsters 72h is normally enough for a legit user to call the bank and protest the transaction.
• If you lose access to your Mercuryo account there’s a way to restore it if you passed the full verification before. Don’t be like Peter Schiff.
• A verified user is entitled to extended limits up to 2000 EUR daily a 15000 EUR monthly and no time limit for withdrawal of crypto.
• KYC also performs checks against all known blacklists and databases to eliminate the apparent criminals, terrorists, money launderers and fraudsters. You don’t want to use the service along with criminal do you? It’s pretty much like passport control at the airport. No one wants to be on the same airplane with terrorists.

What happens to my data?

This is quite a legit concern given that even major cryptocurrency exchanges suffer from information security breaches now and then. Like the recent case when Binance users’ info (including selfies with the documents) was leaked and have become available to the entire Internet.

Mercuryo team spent about 6 months adjusting all of the infrastructure and internal procedures to pass the toughest PCI DSS information security audit. PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard developed by the Security Standards Council and adopted by industry giants such as VISA, MasterCard, AmEx.

The standard was set up to help businesses to process card payments securely, protect sensitive to fraudulent activities cardholder data and reduce the risk of stealing. This achieves through imposing tight control measures surrounding the storage, transmission and processing of cardholder data that Mercuryo handles.

KYC shouldn’t be an issue or stop factor for a regular user with no criminal intentions. Most KYC applications got approved within 10–15 minutes.

Stay safe and make sure you only use services that take your information security seriously.