Identity verification upgrades anticipate regulators’ move on crypto anonymity

The appeal of cryptocurrency relies on a lot more than its potential for tax evasion, according to proponents of the digital money. Regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere are preparing to put those claims to the test, Reuters reports.

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero said this week that anonymity in the crypto market has become a national security concern, as it is being used to finance illegal activities like ransomware attacks on hospitals and critical infrastructure. Speaking at a finance event in London, Romero suggested that the use of software tools (mixers) by crypto companies to effectively anonymize users are not compliant with relevant regulations, and Congress is considering passing new laws to address “anonymity and digital identity.”

“It’s possible for all crypto companies to distance themselves from mixers and anonymity enhancing technology while still providing customers financial privacy,” Romero says.

Regulators around the world are trying to determine how best to regulate cryptocurrencies before beginning negotiations on cross-border systems, according to the report. In the meantime, firms are jurisdiction-shopping to avoid rules, according to the secretary general of the G20’s financial regulation coordinator, John Schindler of the Financial Stability Board (FSB).

The FSB is expected to publish final recommendations for crypto regulation soon.

OCR Labs boosts customer onboarding

Some businesses in the crypto sector are already upgrading their identity verification processes. Trading and community platform Coinmetro has tapped OCR Labs to automate KYC processes for more seamless onboarding. The integration of OCR Labs document fraud analysis technology has reportedly benefited both Coinmetro and its users.

The switch to fully automated IDV took less than 48 hours to implement, and also reduced customer drop-off, according to the company announcement.

“OCR Labs has really comprehensive machine learning with the ability to recognize and analyze different serial variations of documents for each country,” comments Coinmetro Compliance Lead Taavi Rihvk. “The fact that OCR Labs’ DFA (Document Fraud Analysis) allows you to detect and distinguish each one of those specimens is actually really useful for our use case because we have customers from all around the world. No matter what variation of ID is presented, if it is forged the DFA will correctly flag it, whereas a verification specialist may miss it.”

An integration with Coinmetro’s CRM system and its software’s ability to convert text in various languages into the one used by the CRM were also cited by Coinmetro as advantages of OCR Labs.

Biometric card from CardLab adopted to secure access for Nymo users

Blockchain-based crypto remittance platform Nymo has integrated a biometric smart card from CardLab to make its cryptowallet user-friendly and avoid the risk of a forgotten password making crypto assets unrecoverable.

Nymo’s remittance strategy involves providing security for both the sender and receiver through biometric verification, the company says in the announcement.

“This card is the perfect match for Nymo. The omni channel concept of Nymo becomes complete,” says Nymo Managing Director Johann Caubergh. “Magnetic stripe, contact or contactless, the innovative CardLab biometric enabled card is the solution to secure online transactions and can be used as an offline security for shopping. On top of this, CardLab is known for securing contactless cards from hacking, and enable tokenization on a Dynamic Magstripe.”

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  CardLab  |  cryptocurrency  |  face biometrics  |  identity verification  |  OCR Labs