In a valiant effort to shatter the stereotype of the crypto industry as non-compliant, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, published a Thursday blog detailing its laborious collaboration with global regulators.
Contrasting the prevailing narrative that the exchange intentionally obscures its operations to sidestep legal obligations, Binance outlined that its compliance team features an assortment of professionals. This includes former law enforcement officers, regulators and experts from the crypto, fintech, and banking compliance sectors. The team is composed of 750 core and supporting compliance staff, operating across a multitude of specialized departments.
Among these professionals, 20% are empaneled in the Financial Crimes Team, which actively investigates financial crimes inclusive of terrorist financing and money laundering. Their efforts are amplified by Binance’s Global Money Laundering Reporting Officer (GMLRO) team. Their duty not only involves assisting in detecting and reporting money laundering but also monitoring international regulatory developments to ensure complete compliance with respective laws and regulations.
While regulatory bodies such as the U.S. Treasury Department acknowledge that the U.S. dollar shoulders a significantly larger portion of global money laundering than crypto, skepticism remains. Thought leaders in the crypto industry, including Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao, have refuted the idea that digital assets can significantly aid in sanctions evasion due to the traceability of crypto transactions.
Despite these facing these prejudices, Binance stands strong with a sanctions compliance department. They combat potential risks linked with “violations of applicable sanctions, Anti-Bribery and Corruption laws, and Counter-Terrorist Financing measures.” Also, as a regulated exchange, it adheres to “customer due diligence” by executing Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Know-Your-Business (KYB) programs.
However, tensions escalated when the company was recently sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for multiple charges, including allowing U.S. citizens to use its international platform instead of the demarcated Binance.US.
Binance’s co-founder Yi He, in an interview with Bloomberg, took a stand, stating that if Binance is deemed non-compliant, no other global trading platform or offshore companies could be considered compliant either. The question remains, can Binance’s efforts quell the longstanding doubts about crypto’s compliance? Only the unfolding future can tell.
Source: Cryptonews
