Today, BitGo, a leader in digital asset financial services, announced API support for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule. BitGo is the first wallet provider to come to market with a solution for the Travel Rule for its cold and hot wallet services by extending existing API endpoints for clients to append the additional data required under the new rule. Last year, FATF issued global, binding standards for virtual assets, with the first phase to be implemented this summer.
BitGo, which is the wallet platform backing many Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), is extending its APIs to enable information about originators and beneficiaries to be added to transactions requested on their platform. The additional data is intended to provide more visibility into the parties involved in transactions greater than one thousand dollars, as required by the Travel Rule.
“We are currently building the technology that will send and receive travel data in order for BitGo to be compliant as a VASP for our custodial clients,” states Mike Belshe, CEO. “We are able to offer this technology to our exchange clients and, in the process, assist them with the new FATF standards for digital asset compliance.”
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BitGo is extending the transaction API endpoints, which exchange clients are already familiar with, to accept additional travel data. BitGo takes on the heavy lifting of exchanging this travel data on the rails that it has been building to be a compliant VASP for the company’s custodial clients. This is a best case scenario where the crypto ecosystem is working together to comply with new regulations.
The Travel Rule, which now applies to VASPs, helps law enforcement agencies detect, investigate and prosecute money laundering and other financial crimes by safeguarding a trail of persons sending and receiving funds through transfer systems. BitGo is working with regulators in different countries to inform, educate and shape how FATF’s guidance should be interpreted, specifically for the unique challenges of digital assets.
Benefits
- Clients can begin integration today and not have to worry about it in the future
- BitGo does the heavy lift for ongoing Travel Rule compliance as regulation evolves over time
- InterVASP IVMS101 messaging standard used for submitting Travel Rule data to our API
- Lightweight integration by extending existing transaction API endpoints
