Onfido is drawing attention to regulatory proposals that could prompt a wave of demand for digital identity verification solution in the United Kingdom’s cryptocurrency space.
As the company explains in a new blog post, His Majesty’s Treasury recently published a proposal for a “Future Financial Services Regime for Cryptoassets”, seeking to bring some more regulation to the crypto space in the wake of scandals such as the collapse of the FTX exchange last last year. The central premise of the proposal is to extend the reach of current regulations beyond the shores of the UK.
At the moment, UK-based firms offering crypto exchanges or wallets are required to comply with anti-money laundering regulations set up in 2019, which are overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority. HM Treasury suggests that the need for compliance be extended beyond the 40 or so FCA-registered crypto companies to foreign crypto companies that operate in the UK, and to UK-based companies offering such cryptocurrency solutions and services overseas.
HM Treasury also proposes new regulations aimed at preventing abuses in the cryptocurrency markets that would further increase the onus on crypto companies to establish strong KYC systems.
Should the government body’s proposal be realized into an expanded set of regulations, it could prompt a significant number of additional crypto companies to start looking for remote identity verification solutions for their end users. Selfie-based identity verification technology offers a ready solution, using facial recognition to match end users against images of their official IDs. And as a provider of one such solution, Onfido is already working with hundreds of crypto companies around the world – so it’s ready to help.
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