2023-05-26 08:03:18
The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission updated the “Guidelines for Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing” on the 25th, which stipulates that before transferring virtual assets involving no less than 8,000 Hong Kong dollars, the remittance institution must obtain and record the remitter and payee information , and securely submit the relevant information to the collection agencies, the relevant guidelines will come into effect on January 1 next year.
(Recap:The “three major eligibility criteria” for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange license, the encryption lawyer pointed out: it is the most difficult to find a supervisor!）
(background supplement:Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission: 6/1 starts application for “virtual asset trading license”, excluding stable currency trading）
fragrantThe Hong Kong government is making every effort to build the local area into a global digital financial center. The “Guidelines for Operators of Virtual Asset Trading Platforms” will also come into effect on June 1 next week. In the future, platforms that want to provide services related to virtual asset trading in Hong Kong will operate Those who are required to apply for a license from the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission.
KYC records are required for virtual asset transfers above HK$8,000
At the same time, the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission also updated the “Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Guidelines》, which lists 2 common questions and answers for virtual assets, reminding financial institutions to pay attention to compliance when transferring virtual assets.
The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission stated in the frequently asked questions that according to the updated anti-money laundering guidelines, before transferring virtual assets involving no less than 8,000 Hong Kong dollars, the remittance institution must obtain and record the remitter and payee information, and securely send The collection agency submits the relevant information, and the relevant guidelines will come into effect on January 1, 2024.
Chapter 12 of the guidelines states:
Financial institutions are required to implement customer due diligence measures on a customer before executing an occasional transaction (including virtual asset transfer and exchange) that is a virtual asset transfer (and involves a virtual asset equivalent to not less than $8,000) for the customer, regardless of the Transactions are executed as a single operation, or as several operations that the financial institution considers to be related.
In addition to general identification information, financial institutions should obtain additional customer information, which may include network IP addresses together with related time stamps, geographic location data, and device identification codes, etc.
The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission stated that before the guidelines take effect, if financial institutions are unable to submit the required information to the collection agency immediately, they should submit the required information as soon as practicable after the transfer of virtual assets.
In addition, the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission reminds that purely relying on the statement made by the customer is not enough to assist the financial institution to determine the customer’s ownership or control over the account or non-custodial wallet, and reiterates that it should refer to the “Guidelines for Combating Money Laundering” 12.10.6 Examples of validation methods set out in paragraph , namely the micropayment test and the message signing test.
Possible Uses of Virtual Assets in Money Laundering
It is worth noting that the “Guidelines for Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing” also lists the possible uses of virtual asset business in the money laundering process, which mentions that transactions facilitated by virtual asset business may be traded in cash, so here Such businesses may be used to store cash proceeds from criminal activities.
In addition, virtual asset businesses may be exploited to dispose or deposit virtual assets derived from illegal activities or associated with predicate offenses such as cyber scams, ransomware and other cyber crimes.
Virtual asset business may also be used in the second stage of money laundering, which is the process of layered transactions. In order to obscure the source of virtual assets obtained from illegal activities, criminals or money launderers may use different wallet addresses , service providers, categories of virtual assets, or transfer assets between blockchains.
The guidelines pointed out that criminals or money launderers may use layering techniques unique to virtual assets, such as stripping chains and jumping chains; virtual assets are sometimes cleaned through enhanced anonymity services; non-custodial wallets, decentralized virtual asset transactions Exchanges, peer-to-peer platforms or virtual asset businesses that are not regulated or have lax AML/CFT controls are particularly attractive to criminals or money launderers.
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