Monitoring cryptocurrency transactions can seem an impossible task. You’ve got constant KYC checks on clients to conduct, and AML policies to adhere to. And none of this is a one-off. Rather, it’s all constantly ongoing. Especially if you’re dealing with customers who are suddenly flagged as counterparty risks for their involvement in financial crime.
In such cases, you’re looking at a slew of additional AML measures in order to retroactively respond to past transactions that are only now being reclassified as high-risk. Because it’s these sanctioned individuals and entities who often present the biggest risk to maintaining compliance across your organisation. And this is where the transaction monitoring for crypto comes in.
SANCTIONED ENTITIES
For the past four years, OFAC (the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control) has been publishing cryptocurrency addresses as part of their Specially Designated Nationals list; including sanctioned entities such as those who develop malicious strains of ransomware or who have been found to be laundering funds on behalf of cybercriminals.
Blockchain analysis suggests crypto compliance teams have been fairly successful in their efforts. For example, prior to inclusion in OFAC’s sanctions list, over 45 million dollars were known to have passed through the digital currency address of cybercriminal Dmitrii V K (who deployed multiple web domains in a sophisticated phishing campaign targeting users of multiple digital currency exchanges). Since sanctions were emplaced, his digital currency address has seen transactions totalling almost zero; and any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant transaction or provides significant financial services for the individual is subject, themselves, to sanctions.
PAST TRANSACTIONS
The rewards for cryptocurrency crime may be great. But the punishments are extremely harsh – and not just for the sanctioned individual. And therein lies the importance of ongoing cryptocurrency transaction monitoring: when a new entity is sanctioned, cryptocurrency compliance teams must hasten to review past transaction activity (checking whether their platform processed any previous transactions with the now-sanctioned entity) or else stand in breach of AML laws and measures.
Compliance teams who don’t continuously monitor prior transactions for newly-identified risk may well fall foul of regulators. But the answer lies in continuous cryptocurrency transaction monitoring through an automated system. A process, The Financial Action Task Force advises, which is now a practical necessity and, quite simply, the only way to stay current.
WHAT YOU NEED
Any continuous cryptocurrency transaction monitoring solution must possess the following elements to be effective in terms of compliance:
1. Automated Alerts
Manual screening of old transactions as new risk factors arise is utterly impossible for compliance teams in terms of both time and effort. But with automated alert software, old wallets will be scanned automatically for suspicious transactions between those wallets and a cryptocurrency platform when new risk designations arise, and the compliance team notified immediately.
2. Customised Alerts
Continuous monitoring tools need alerts that are customised to the thresholds, risk categories, and standards of each organisation. Without bespoke alert software, your compliance team may well be flooded with non-critical alerts for past transactions that don’t necessarily need follow up.
3. No Added Costs
While most solutions allow for continuous compliance monitoring of current alerts, many also require payment for re-screening of historic transactions, which can create unforeseen costs for the organisation. At iSPIRAL, our Automatic Transaction Monitoring software not only allows for automatic, bespoke alerts, but also offers exceptional value for money with its built-in rescreening of past transactions processes.
iSPIRAL’s RegTek+ AML Transaction Monitoring solution delivers total protection against cryptocurrency crime whilst ensuring your organisation remains fully compliant. Complete with customisable alerts and rules, dynamic risk scoring of transaction activity, and machine-learning transaction analysis, this state-of-the-art software is an invaluable asset in your fight against cybercrime.
