A Survey of KYC/AML for Cryptocurrencies Transactions

Abstract

KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) practices have been designed and implemented in traditional financial transactions for some years now. However, it has been complicated to find a balance between business efficiency, innovations, financial inclusion, and compliance, both in the specification of what should be done and in the implementation of a risk-based approach that satisfies the required specification during real business operation. This chapter presents a survey of traditional practices to KYC/AML, highlighting a subset of existing challenges in these practices, taking into consideration the innovation of cryptocurrencies transactions and related innovations, such as digital identity, and the financial inclusion of unbanked people without identity papers. The authors finish this chapter by discussing existing solutions to these challenges both by adopting new KYC/AML practices and by using innovative technological solutions.