London-based crypto banking startup Cashaa launched a “Crypto Business/Broker” account to ensure crypto businesses/brokers are compliant with the FCA’s new rules for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist finance and Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD).
Cashaa’s mission is to help crypto businesses get access to banking who have always struggled with traditional banks. Finally, in 2019, it started its operations in partnership with an FCA regulated entity intending to become the go-to banking services provider for underbanked industries worldwide.
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“We launched our business banking services in 2019, but onboarding crypto businesses was a huge challenge, mostly due to changing compliance rules, sometimes unclear KYC and AML policies of the business or sometimes just loose behavior of founders. The Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) became compulsory for European states from 10th Jan 2020, resulting in the FCA to become the AML and CTF supervisor for crypto businesses. Based on my experience, the situation will get worse for many crypto companies out there who do not understand the implications. Our product is developed to adopt these new laws with reliable banking services to protect crypto entrepreneurs.” — Archit Aggarwal, CPO Cashaa
More than 1000 crypto companies have applied to Cashaa, mostly looking for a bank account and credit/debit card processing facility. Cashaa had turned down 80% of the applications because the businesses did not understand AML and CFT rules. Based on the experience of dealing with over a thousand crypto companies, Cashaa realized that most of the founders working in the blockchain or DLT space are are young, dynamic entrepreneurs, full of innovative ideas who mainly focus on engineering, but are lacking specialized compliance knowledge.
Cashaa’s “Crypto Business/Broker” account has coded policies and systems to mitigate the risk of the business being used for money laundering or terrorist financing. Cashaa has integrated the KYC system for individual and corporate entities within the account for due diligence of each sender/receiver when doing transactions. Three levels of the KYC system will do intrusive due diligence, known as enhanced due diligence when dealing with customers who may present a higher money laundering/terrorist finance risk, also including PEP (Politically Exposed Person) checks. Cashaa’s systems, together with its reliable banking partners, will be doing the ongoing monitoring of all the transactions happening to make sure they are consistent with the business’ knowledge of the customer and the customer’s business and risk profile.
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“We have put our experience of dealing with hundreds of crypto businesses and extended our capabilities through technology to our customers to give them the freedom to innovate with minimum worrying about the new FCA rules or 5AMLD.” — Kumar Gaurav, CEO Cashaa
From 22nd January onwards, businesses are able to get a crypto broker account for Pound Sterling (GBP) and Euro (EUR). Great Britain and Lithuania IBAN (International Bank Account Number) accounts with a unique reference number will enable FPS (Faster Payments Service), CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System), SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) payments, allowing 3rd party payments up to 200 Million GBP.
There is no monthly fee to make sure small innovative crypto companies can use the product. The KYC checks and ongoing transaction monitoring will be done automatically in the account, to make sure each transaction is following the European 5AMLD. To make sure only serious companies are applying for the account, a small application fee of 100,000 CAS will be required. Interested businesses can acquire CAS from Binance DEX.
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