EPAM Joins OpenVASP to Take Part in Implementation of FATF ‘Travel Rule’ for Crypto

UTC by Christopher Hamman · 3 min read
EPAM Joins OpenVASP to Take Part in Implementation of FATF ‘Travel Rule’ for Crypto
Photo: EPAM Global / Instagram

EPAM has joined the OpenVASP association in order to help in the implementation of the FATF travel rules for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.

Enterprise software company EPAM systems has united with a body responsible for the implementation of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) “Travel rule” for crypto. It has already vowed to commit its technical expertise to ensure full compliance with the FATF guidelines. Cryptocurrency businesses are faced with the herculean task of complying with the directives.

The FATF introduced the new rules in June 2019 to enable curb the risk of money laundering across jurisdictions. Recommendation 16 is concerned with the activities of law enforcement involving both the sender and receiver of a financial transaction.

The change has created cause for concern among cryptocurrency exchanges. The new rules have included Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) as part of those who must adhere to the rules as well.

FATF Rule Has Issues for the Virtual Asset Service Providers

Simply put, transactions that exceed a certain value are to be recorded and shared with certain organizations and institutions. Such parties include law enforcement, governments, central banks and so on.

The cost of implementation, privacy, and bureaucratic issues have been causing sleepless nights. To make matters worse, non-compliant Countries are noted and blacklisted.

Cryptocurrency exchanges and their partners then came up with a solution. The OpenVASP platform allows information exchange across Virtual Asset providers on a common protocol. OpenVASP was launched as an initiative in November 2019. This information consists of the transaction details of the sender and receiver.

This solution would be treated by EPAM to enable Virtual Asset Service Providers to send information to each other. The process will occur seamlessly. Sources say that EPAM’s programming language of choice is Java. This is the second instance though. The first instance is using C#.

The great thing about the first instance is that C# is a truly cross-platform language. C# applications have been known to be deployed across different platforms. This can be done using the same code.

Solution Offered by EPAM Makes Things Easy for Crypto

Implementation, however, will follow different frameworks with adequate security measures. EPAM’s version is to allow members of the VASP ecosystem to cooperate. Such members including brokers, banks, insurance companies and so on.

Founding members are already using the C# solution. They are making headway there.

Balazs Fejes, co-head of global business at EPAM, said in a press release speaking about their work aimed at crypto:

“With alternative crypto assets becoming more mainstream, there is a need in the market to align investors, market participants and regulations to a common standard. OpenVASP provides a transparent, trusted protocol for reporting crypto-asset transactions, and we are pleased to partner with the association to support the open-source community and provide an innovative solution to this challenge.”

International cooperation among organizations has always been a tricky thing. As such, the creation of protocols such as OpenVASP.

While it is a novel idea, it remains yet to be seen whether the crypto space will accept this initiative. After all, cryptocurrencies were created to solve most of the problems that the FATF is bringing to the fore.

Cryptocurrency News, News
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