iComply Offers OFAC Screening for Sanctioned Bitcoin and Crypto Addresses

On November 28, 2018, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added its first bitcoin addresses to its public list of sanctioned individuals and entities. iComply is capable of screening these addresses to ensure compliance for decentralized finance and assets

Vancouver, B.C. – November 29, 2018 – iComply Investor Services (“iComply”), a leading RegTech platform for global digital finance and cryptocurrencies offers comprehensive blockchain forensic screening to address risks related to blockchain addresses, including sanctions screening, fraud, theft, and cyber-security.

On November 28, 2018, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added multiple Iranians and their bitcoin addresses to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN List) for laundering the bitcoin proceeds from the infamous SamSam ransomware scheme. This is the first instance of OFAC adding a cryptocurrency address to their public list of sanctioned individuals and entities.

“Agencies such as OFAC protect the integrity of financial markets, warning companies about individuals or companies that may pose a risk to their business. We developed our RegTech software, iComply, to make it possible to screen for these kinds of threats in both centralized and decentralized finance to address the unique risks when financial assets are traded using public blockchains. Currently, our solution supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Dash and Bitcoin Cash,” said Qayyum Rajan, Chief Data Officer, of iComply Investor Services Inc.

iComply’s solution addresses risks related to blockchain addresses and the trading of financial assets using public blockchains, this is an integral process that is complementary to traditional AML/KYC for fiat. Institutions can query addresses to achieve financial grade compliance around the individuals and entities that it transacts with.

“As blockchain is increasingly used for mainstream finance, it is integral to enforce regulatory compliance not just for the individual and entity but also for the transactions themselves,’ added Rajan. “While there has been a lot of talk about the Howey test to determine whether a token is subject to securities laws, institutions such as OFAC are now also enforcing criminal liabilities once these assets are trading.”

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Looking for financial grade KYC and AML in an enterprise ready API?

iComply offers global screening for humans, corporations, and blockchain transactions in a single REST API.

Book a demo with one of our specialists to learn more.

iComplyID is a zero-knowledge proof, legal-entity identifier.

Vancouver, B.C. – iComply (iComply Investor Services Inc.) is announcing the launch of iComplyID, which acts as a portable KYC (“know your customer”) solution for digital identity management in financial services and government applications. iComplyID significantly enhances cybersecurity and privacy for individuals while reducing the costs of compliance with anti-money laundering (AML), anti-terrorist financing (ATF) regulations, and national identity programs.

iComply is a RegTech software company focused on creating enterprise solutions that reduce the burden of financial, regulatory, and compliance requirements by synchronizing country by country legislation. Last month, the company released the world’s first automated compliance protocol, “Prefacto,” for securities regulation to enable token issuers, security token platforms, licensed stock exchanges and investors to launch and trade blockchain coins or smart contract tokens in compliance with global securities, identity, and privacy regulations.

“Our focus is to demonstrate how, when used appropriately, tools like blockchain, machine learning, and biometrics can serve to enhance integrity, transparency and security in capital markets. We are empowering organizations and individuals by enabling them to utilize the internet of value safely,” said Matthew Unger, CEO and Founder of iComply.

Recently, the banking industry has seen the trend of ‘platformization,’ where financial institutions move away from proprietary legacy solutions and have started to embrace shared resources.

ATMs for example, are owned by individual banks, but rely on administrative entities like VISA to manage inter-bank processes. Conversely, blockchain enables the decentralization of data for frictionless cooperation between entities in a network without intermediaries.

Recently, the Bank of Canada and the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced a program to leverage blockchain for interbank settlement and reconciliation. This reduces the time and cost of these processes, which is one of the features driving the increasing popularity of platforms and decentralized infrastructure.

Trust in intermediary organizations has faltered in recent years, with the Equifax security breach leaving the personal data of 143 million customers vulnerable.

“2017 was the year of the ICO with over 1,200 issued from Canada and the USA alone, and nearly 260 out of Singapore. Issuers in 2018 are taking a new approach, abandoning the fast and loose SAFT offerings to set up compliant securities offerings that simply happen to use blockchain to manage their holders of record. and even working with regulators preemptively. To scale globally, financial institutions need a secure, scalable, and compliant solution to manage investor identity verification, know your client, anti-money laundering, and real time source of funds monitoring. iComplyID is the only turnkey ID/KYC solution in the world that meets these requirements while protecting the privacy and consent of the user.” added Unger.

Looking for financial grade KYC and AML in an enterprise ready API?

iComply offers global screening for humans, corporations, and blockchain transactions in a single REST API.

Book a demo with one of our specialists to learn more.

iComply announced that Matt Masiar has joined our growing powerhouse team! This European-born Canadian has a rich background in financial services, software development, and entrepreneurship, and previously worked as the Dev Team Lead for Plenty of Fish in Vancouver.

Born in Slovakia, Matt has lived in Canada most of his life, first moving to Toronto until his primary school years, then heading to Calgary for junior high and high school years. During his early twenties, he found himself moving back to Toronto, where he obtained a double major in Computer Science and History at the University of Toronto. He eventually found himself settling in Vancouver in recent years.

“It was the lifestyle and my family that brought me to Vancouver,” said Matt “I was a ski instructor, a master scuba diver, and an avid hiker. My sister had also moved out here about 10 years ago, and I wanted to be closer to the family both here and in Calgary.”

Despite his strong background and expertise in technology and business, Matt wasn’t always keen on being in this industry. “As a kid, I definitely wanted to be a pilot when I grew up, wanted to get my pilot’s license early and have all the amazing adventures that come along with that lifestyle. But I came from a techie family, and as a result, I just naturally fell into that realm.”

Early Entrepreneur

Matt started running his own business, Aoulous Inc., when he was 16 years old. He incorporated a software development company by building out larger, commercial-scale web apps for companies like law firms, mortgage brokers, and many more.

Especially when he started out on his own, all the financial, legal, and branding experience he had exposure to in his early years helped him immensely. “Toronto is the commercial center of Canada, and those are the verticals and the core industries you come across there,” Matt said.

To this day, he still owns and runs that company, specializing in legal software and broker origination software, with many other different verticals along with a marketing/branding agency in house. “Definitely proud of my business in Toronto, it has shaped such a large part of my life, contributed to my knowledge with such a wide, diverse range of experiences and lessons learned.”

“I’ve always had a passion for financial services and technology, and in any position or company, I’m constantly searching for that opportunity to meld those two passions in one role.”

Intro to Blockchain

He first came across blockchain and Bitcoin in 2013. His roommate at the time introduced him to mining Bitcoin and how it was done. “I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t get involved sooner! But it was hard to predict where it would go in those days.”

“I did not really engage much in the blockchain ecosystem when I first learned about it,” shared Matt. “About a year or so ago, however, a friend approached me for another venture in cryptocurrency. We would act as an insurer for landlords for renters that couldn’t pay their rent on time, but we needed liquidity to ensure the landlords against rent default, and that’s when we started delving into the idea of ICOs.”

Joining iComply Investor Services

Recently, Matt randomly found himself chatting with Matthew Unger, CEO and Founder of iComply. “There was a networking event, quite literally in the garden next to my house; we had a conversation about the future of financial markets and the tech, such as blockchain, that would drive the next wave – it just continued from there. The timing couldn’t have been better…the technology was fascinating to me, and I was really excited about how I could be a part of building this thing out to scale.”

Commenting on his role as CTO, “It’s an exciting opportunity to shape the technical direction of our platform and exactly how users interact with it,” Matt said. “Because we’re starting out from scratch, we’re not leveraging someone else’s platform, iComply allows me to merge my interests in finance and technology by using my technical knowledge to make this a reality.”

“User security and data privacy is the highest priority for me…I want to instil trust and safety because I would expect nothing less for myself. It’s exciting to be part of a project where that is the backbone of the company.”

The Passion is Contagious

Matt’s excitement also shows through as he shares details of his conversations with others. “When you talk to people, you feel their excitement, especially if they understand cryptocurrencies and the blockchain behind it, and are aware of the bureaucracy that we’re attempting to prevent.”

Even family members are throwing in their support. “My dad is a pretty smart guy, and he tends to be skeptical of new business ideas; when I pitched him about iComply, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more enthusiastic!”

“The biggest surprise in the brief time I’ve been involved with the team is the level of compliance and legislation we have to consider and manage . . . [it has] been a fascinating and massive learning experience. The scope and level of detail when building out [our product] is surprising as well…being able to automate and facilitate these concepts and models, and understand how to help our customers navigate them. iComply takes a unique spin on token offerings, in the sense that anybody can approach the concept of compliance and launch in line with financial regulations, enabling the technology of ICOs to be used for traditional financial instruments such as equities, debt, real estate, and derivatives, and run in an ethical manner as opposed to many of the shady deals we’ve seen so far.” 

Looking to the Future

“I’ve been involved with three startups now, and there are some things that you’ll only ever learn by doing them, sometimes over and over (ie: how to raise capital, how to run a business, how to run payroll). You have to be in a place to take advantage of an opportunity when it comes along…which is what we’ve done at iComply.”

Looking to the future of the company, Matt insists that we’ll all be on our yachts enjoying the sunshine and the fruits of our labours. “Seriously though,” he continues, “I’m really want to succeed in opening up the institutional level of capital, to open up the reality of capital and cash for a lot more businesses. Often, the biggest failure that business owners face is not being able to finance their vision. I hope to see iComply unseat the established financial institutional models, and that we become an incubator for future financial innovations.”

Looking for an end-to-end token management studio?

iComply’s token compliance platform, Prefacto enables issuers to capture the value of blockchain asset management with multi-jurisdictional compliance automation for over 150 countries.

Book a demo with one of our specialists to learn more.