Report: Crypto Exchanges Turn To Sanction Screening, Transaction Monitoring To Root Out Cybercrime

The past year has ushered in record growth for the eCommerce industry. Consumers around the globe are going online to buy everyday essentials and more — but this has also created significant regulatory challenges for the online platforms and marketplaces driving this trend. Cybercriminals have been quick to take advantage of consumers’ developing taste for digital transactions, making fraud the chief concern for more than half of United States and United Kingdom businesses that transact across borders.

This spells trouble for eCommerce businesses, which have long held the legal responsibility to follow local know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements to keep cybercrime in check. Yet nearly 50 percent of organizations say they do not do their due diligence on decreasing the financial risk of such criminal activities.

The high cost of cybercrime is set to continue, yet consumers show no signs of jumping back into brick-and-mortar shopping as they once did. This leaves eCommerce businesses with just one path forward: finding a way to meet compliance regulations. The August edition of the “AML/KYC Tracker®” examines what eCommerce platforms must do to ensure they are following AML and KYC requirements as more commerce takes place across borders.

Around the AML/KYC Space

Around the world, eCommerce platforms are working to enhance their digital security capacities as their customers continue to shift their shopping habits online. Mercado Libre is one such platform. The Argentina-based eCommerce platform recently announced that it would be tapping its FinTech arm, Mercado Pago, to implement a new user verification function.

Not all platforms are meeting their AML and KYC requirements, however. Cryptocurrency firms in the U.K. were recently rebuked by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for failing to meet AML regulations, with many threatening to withdraw their trade applications as a result. The FCA even went so far as to extend a provisional licensing program from July 6 to March 21, 2022, to prevent “an unprecedented number” of crypto trading firms from withdrawing their trade applications.

There are also countless businesses across the globe working with third-party providers to enhance consumers’ personal data security in what has historically been a particularly unsecure arena: cross-border commerce. Payment providers PayDo, Pollen Technologies, Sokin and XanderPay recently began using a biometric-enabled security solution provided by Trulioo to ensure that they are meeting cross-border KYC requirements.

For more on these stories and other headlines from the AML/KYC space, download the tracker.

How Customer Authentication and Transaction Analysis Can Prevent Cryptocurrency Money Laundering

The cryptocurrency space has historically been besieged by fraudsters and other bad actors, due in no small part to the anonymity that these platforms typically allow. That is changing rapidly, however, as government institutions around the globe tighten their regulatory grips and home in on crypto-related crime. In this month’s Feature Story, PYMNTS talks with Jay Hao, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, about how customer authentication and transaction analysis tools can help companies tackle money laundering and comply with AML and KYC regulations.

Deep Dive: How Fortifying Their AML and KYC Measures Can Help eCommerce Platforms Clamp Down on Crime

Consumers have been moving more of their shopping lives online, even when it comes to purchasing essential items that they could once only get in stores. Cybercriminals are hot on their heels, however, aiming to take advantage of unsuspecting shoppers as they make the plunge into eCommerce. This month’s Deep Dive analyzes how eCommerce continues to surge amid the ongoing public health crisis and looks at the steps that online marketplaces can take to protect their platforms from fraud.

About the Tracker

The August edition of the “AML/KYC Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and Trulioo collaboration, examines what eCommerce platforms must do to ensure they are following AML and KYC requirements as more commerce takes place across borders.