CoolBitX founder Michael Ou says Asian countries are leading the way in introducing a “travel rule” for the FATF, which should be offered no later than June 2020.
CoolBitX itself has developed a solution to implement the travel rule called Sygna Bridge. It allows exchanges to communicate with each other the personal data of senders and recipients of each transaction.
A few days ago, the company announced the successful testing of Sygna Bridge and its compliance with FATF guidelines. The system also showed that it is able to verify transactions and identify their affiliation with known terrorists and drug dealers.
“Asia is on the way to changing the crypto industry and could be an illustration for the rest of the world,” said Ou.
Trending: Smart Contracts Audits Startup Hexens Closed $4.2 M Seed Funding
According to Ow, Singapore and South Korea were the most prepared to implement the FATF travel rule. He noted that the relevant amendments were introduced to the Singapore Payment Services Law and the South Korean Financial Transaction Reporting Law.
In 2019, the FATF asked global regulators to use anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines in their legislation, including a travel rule requiring crypto-exchanges to disclose users' personal information. The FATF also made it clear that countries that do not introduce these rules by June 2020 will be blacklisted.
At the end of March, the FATF published a report stating that, among other countries, “the United States is broadly compliant” with the obligations of this organization.