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iComply and Quantoz to Power Stablecoin Blockchain Applications for Financial Service Providers

iComply and Quantoz to Power Stablecoin Blockchain Applications for Financial Service Providers

by | Apr 20, 2020 | Blog, Press Releases, Web3

iComply and Quantoz to Power Stablecoin Blockchain Applications for Financial Service Providers

Partnership enables organisations to launch compliant business processes on public blockchains without the need for technical knowledge of digital wallets or blockchain technology

Vancouver, B.C., and Utrecht, NL – April 20, 2020 – iComply Investor Services (“iComply”), a regtech leader in compliance for financial services providers, and Quantoz N.V., the provider of NEXUS, a SaaS platform that enables compliant fiat-to-virtual asset transfers, are announcing their shared solution to address the technical and compliance challenges that regulated firms face when using public blockchains.

Stablecoins – digital assets that are secured by real-world assets such as fiat currency – are being explored by central banks in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union as one of the most promising applications for blockchain technology in finance. Compared to physical currency, stablecoins provide lower operating costs, increased transparency, and real-time reconciliation capabilities as a new form of contactless cash.

While hundreds of new ventures have launched blockchain solutions, most struggle with maintaining their accounting, reporting, and compliance to an institutional standard. This results in many innovative projects failing, due in large part to their failure to meet regulatory requirements.

Henri de Jong, Co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer of Quantoz, said: “Companies operating in the blockchain space, are increasingly subject to regulation. Cooperation with iComply helps our NEXUS customers to dynamically comply with regulatory rules and procedures across multiple jurisdictions.”

Integration of the NEXUS platform with iComply’s intelligent AML management solution will allow financial services providers to mitigate compliance risk while using public blockchains. This compliance-by-design methodology enables firms to identify risk, automate transaction monitoring, and scale back-office operations.

“In order to successfully manage a stablecoin, the issuer needs to manage complicated technical, regulatory, and compliance requirements,” said Matthew Unger, CEO of iComply. “By integrating NEXUS with iComply we can help private banks, corporations, and central banks to easily test and deploy digitally native assets.”

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About iComply Investor Services Inc.
iComply Investor Services Inc. (“iComply”) is a Regtech company that provides fully-digital KYC and AML compliance solutions for non face-to-face financial and legal interactions. iComply enables financial services providers to reduce costs, risk, and complexity and improve staff capacity, effectiveness, and customer experience. By partnering with multinational technology vendors such as Microsoft, DocuSign, Thomson Reuters and Refinitiv, iComply is bringing compliance teams into the digital age. Learn more: www.icomplyis.com

About Quantoz:
Quantoz enables its clients to easily integrate tokens into their business with NEXUS, a SaaS solution that connects traditional financial “fiat money” with public blockchains.

 

iComply Contact Info:
Matthew Unger, CEO [email protected]
Vancouver, Canada

Quantoz Contact Info:
Nick Haasnoot, CEO [email protected]
Utrecht, Netherlands

Digital Securities: Benefits & Use Cases – Free Resource

Digital Securities: Benefits & Use Cases – Free Resource

by | Oct 18, 2019 | Blog, Crypto, iComply Insights, Industries, Prefacto, Web3

Digital Securities: Benefits & Use Cases – Free Resource

Blockchain technology is becoming ubiquitous in today’s world–including the world of traditional finance. Global personal wealth surpassed US$200 trillion in 2017, and it’s expected to grow by 7% (CAGR) every year until 2022.

In such a widening pool of available capital, the B2B finance and private markets are ripe for investors to capitalize on new opportunities and for financial institutions to leverage new innovations for wealth management. 

This September, iComply Investor Services Inc. released a new report, Tokenization: Benefits & Use Cases, a comprehensive overview of the Tokenization use cases that exist for digital asset in the traditional financial markets today.

From shareholder equity and corporate bonds to real estate and physical commodities, tokenization of traditional and complex investment products is already happening.

Covering such basics as “What is the legal status of a smart contract?” and “What is a token?”, this resource can help you gain a foundational understanding of this rapidly emerging trend in global private markets.

Blockchain technology is empowering the global financial markets to capitalize on digital investment opportunities–and can be harnessed in your own company.

Explore 6 Major Tokenization Case Studies
Get My Copy Now!

Learn how tokenization is being used today, and the potential benefits it can add to your company’s bottom line. You would not want to be without this resource on blockchain for regulated asset management.

Contact us at [email protected] and a member of our team will reach out to explain how tokenization can work for you.

Reach Out

iComply Investor Services (iComply) is an industry leading and award winning Regtech (regulatory technology) company specializing in compliance automation for digital finance. Our suite of enterprise solutions helps companies overcome the cost and complexity of multi-jurisdictional compliance to effectively access new markets and opportunities.

iComply to Power Global Compliance for Digital Assets on Hedera Hashgraph Public Distributed Ledger

iComply to Power Global Compliance for Digital Assets on Hedera Hashgraph Public Distributed Ledger

by | Feb 26, 2019 | Blog, In The News, Press Releases, Web3

Vancouver, B.C. – February 26, 2019 – iComply Investor Services (“iComply”), a regulatory technology firm offering software that automates global compliance requirements for digital assets, is announcing that it will be releasing integrations for Hedera Hashgraph, a public, distributed ledger platform.

This will include integrations for both iComply’s Prefacto trade management protocol and iComplyKYC product. These integrations will make it easy for developers to implement banking-grade governance, risk, and compliance programs globally. This will also enable financial institutions to adopt and benefit from decentralization.

“For Hedera developers, this means that investors, both corporations and individuals, can be quickly screened and onboarded,” said iComply CEO, Matthew Unger. “Further, globally compliant digital assets such as equity, debt, derivatives, or utility tokens can be created and issued in minutes and have their compliance automatically managed throughout the life of the asset.”

Hedera Hashgraph is a public distributed ledger for building decentralized applications that is recognized for being fast and secure.

“Hedera’s speed and security make it a powerful tool for use in global capital markets. Even with scaling layers, Ethereum’s current speed of 15 transactions per second cannot handle public market transaction volumes,” said Matthew Unger, CEO of iComply.

According to 2017 World Bank data, the U.S. capital markets alone perform 40 billion daily transactions, requiring over 230 billion compliance recordings each day.

Anyone issuing digital securities – including hedge funds, securities exchanges, and financial institutions – using Hedera Hashgraph and iComply will benefit from iComply’s banking-grade compliance, risk, and intelligence tools paired with Hedera’s security and speed.

“We are excited that iComply has chosen to integrate their services with Hedera and give our community access to banking-grade compliance, risk, and financial intelligence data,” said Jordan Fried, VP of Global Business Development at Hedera Hashgraph. “Further, this will allow us to better serve financial institutions, and enable a broader range of institutional grade applications to be built, to streamline and reduce operating costs in financial services.”

iComply’s award-winning products enable investor onboarding in seconds, while ensuring adherence to local regulatory standards with its robust, global KYC and BSA solution. Securities issuers, dealers, and fund managers can automatically populate, track, and account for every investor, document, and transaction for the life of a client, reducing human error and costs by up to 98%.

iComply is the trusted compliance partner for asset tokenization and securitization to 64 leading legal, accounting, and advisory firms spanning 84 countries.

“From an enterprise financial services perspective, Hedera Hashgraph and iComply are a powerful combination of high performance, secure, and autonomous record keeping and reporting for public markets,” added Unger. “As the race to institutionalize blockchain continues, this integration will enable iComply to meet the cybersecurity and performance demands of even the highest volume securities exchanges and tier-one financial institutions.”

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About iComply Investor Services Inc.
iComply Investor Services Inc. (iComply) is an award-winning software company focused on reducing regulatory friction in the capital markets. With powerful data, verification, tokenization solutions, iComply helps companies overcome the cost and complexity of multi-jurisdictional compliance to effectively access new markets. Learn more: iComplyIS.com

iComply MasterClass: Understanding and Mitigating Risks in Crypto

iComply MasterClass: Understanding and Mitigating Risks in Crypto

by | Jan 23, 2019 | AML - Anti-Money Laundering, Blog, Crypto, Events, iComply Insights, Knowledge Base, Prefacto, Web3

In this upcoming MasterClass hosted by iComply, BitAML’s Founder Joe Ciccolo and Coinstructive’s CEO Chris Groshong join iComply’s Head of Product Strategy Greg Pinn to discuss the importance of understanding and mitigating your company’s risk in crypto compliance and AML screening.

Compliance tends to be one of the larger knowledge gaps for modern business management; closing this gap is not only essential to the success of your business, it’s also the law. Our expert panel will discuss the areas of risk that your business could be subject to and the challenges associated with non-face-to-face transactions. Find out what can be done to mitigate these risks, and learn why regulators will no longer buy ignorance as an excuse for non-compliance.

Register Now

Save Your Spot: Registration Limited to the First 100 People
Date: Tuesday, February 5th
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Pacific Standard Time)

Key Learnings:
In this MasterClass, the panel will break down the existing risks surrounding digital transactions and what steps you can take to mitigate these risks in order to protect your company and your investors.

About Greg Pinn — Head of Product Strategy, iComply
Formerly the head of World-Check (Thomson Reuters’ most profitable company), Greg Pinn led product strategy for almost ten years—both before and after its $560-million acquisition by Thomson Reuters. World-Check is described as the “cornerstone of the Thomson Reuters risk business” and is the #1 compliance software for KYC, AML, ATF at Tier 1 and central banks globally. Greg’s experience in risk, governance and compliance analysis, product strategy, and leadership of large global development and sales teams were critical to World-Check’s success and now support him in his role to ensure iComply’s brand delivers confidence, trust, and security to all stakeholders.

About Joe Ciccolo — Founder, BitAML
Before founding BitAML, Joe Ciccolo spent over a decade in high-impact roles with leading institutions such as State Farm and Citizens Financial Group. He was a founding member and architect of a Bank Secrecy Act / Anti-Money Laundering program for one of the top 100 online financial institutions in the U.S., and worked as a project manager for a top-20 international bank, managing regulatory and AML audit remediation projects. His additional leadership experience includes risk management, vendor due diligence, fraud prevention, and corporate investigations. Joe regularly consults with bankers regarding the onboarding of Bitcoin customers, as well as complex cryptocurrency-related investigations involving federal and local law enforcement. He is a frequent speaker at cryptocurrency, payments, and compliance industry events and volunteers his time at the non-profit organization Blockchain Education Network.

About Chris Groshong — President & CEO, CoinStructive
As President of CoinStructive, a Bitcoin & Blockchain consulting firm in San Diego, Chris Groshong has developed a nationwide team that is furthering the development of cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption. With a focus on clarity, CoinStructive provides an obstacle-free transition for businesses and enterprises who are interested in using cryptocurrencies or blockchain tech as part of their business strategy. They are solutions architects and problem solvers and help fill the gaps in your business model. CoinStructive’s fundamental goal is not only to help organizations reach theirs but also to do so in a way that empowers founders, boards and entrepreneurs to make educated, well-informed, and confident business decisions.

Register Now

About iComply Investor Services Inc.
iComply Investor Services Inc. (iComply) is an award-winning software company focused on reducing regulatory friction in the capital markets. With powerful data, verification, tokenization solutions, iComply helps companies overcome the cost and complexity of multi-jurisdictional compliance to effectively access new markets. Learn more: iComplyIS.com

iComply Releases OFAC Screening For 6 Major Cryptocurrencies

iComply Releases OFAC Screening For 6 Major Cryptocurrencies

by | Nov 29, 2018 | AML - Anti-Money Laundering, Blog, Crypto, Industries, Prefacto, Press Releases, Product Updates

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.

About iComply Investor Services Inc.
iComply Investor Services Inc. (iComply) is an award-winning software company focused on reducing regulatory friction in the capital markets. With powerful data, verification, tokenization solutions, iComply helps companies overcome the cost and complexity of multi-jurisdictional compliance to effectively access new markets. Learn more: iComplyIS.com

The Future of FATF Travel Rule and Regulatory Compliance
The Future of FATF Travel Rule and Regulatory Compliance

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Understanding the FATF Travel Rule The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule is a significant regulation in the global fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. It mandates that financial institutions share certain information about the...

Challenges and Solutions in FATF Travel Rule Compliance
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Complying with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule presents several challenges for financial institutions. These challenges can hinder the effective implementation of compliance processes. This article explores...

Implementing FATF Travel Rule Compliance
Implementing FATF Travel Rule Compliance

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The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule is essential for preventing money laundering and terrorist financing. Implementing compliance with this rule requires a strategic approach to ensure all regulatory requirements...

New University Research: The Compliance Trilemma

New University Research: The Compliance Trilemma

by | Nov 19, 2018 | Blog, Crypto, iComply Insights, Prefacto, Press Releases, Web3

A research team from the University of British Columbia (UBC) conducted more than 45 interviews and dozens of observations from industry experts to explore the past, present, and expectations for the future of token issuers from diverse perspectives.

iComply Investor Services commissioned a study to better understand the challenges that token issuers face to meet the regulatory standards for issuing and tracking digital assets. Currently, these projects face significant barriers that result in trade-offs that hinder the true potential of blockchain managed assets. The research collaboration was supported by Mitacs’s Accelerate Program.

The Findings:

The use of blockchain technology allows token issuers to efficiently gain access to global customers, partners, and capital.

Key Challenge: The burden of the cost of regulation

Challenges broadly stem from the cost of complying with regulation. In 2017 there was significant ambiguity surrounding whether and how digital assets were regulated, and many issuers neglected this dimension altogether. While a large number of issuers were well-intentioned, others could not resist exploiting the prospect of unlimited access to global investors. Early offerings could often raise more with savvy marketing than a well-reasoned project plan, and a large number of early token offerings were little more than Ponzi schemes. Today, regulatory clarity and enforcement are essential if tokenized securities are to become a safe and legitimate fundraising mechanism.

The study found that issuers currently face a compliance trilemma, whereby they can realize only two of the following three goals in their token offerings:

  • Cost-effectiveness
  • Widely distributed investors
  • Regulatory compliance

While we focus here on ICOs, the compliance trilemma also holds more generally for other decentralized finance practices involving cryptoassets including ICOs, STOs, TGEs, and IEOs.

To date, issuers have adopted various approaches to address the trilemma:

  • Sacrificing compliance by directly defying regulators and hoping to fly under the radar
  • sacrificing the scope of investment by restricting token sales to a limited group of investors
  • Compromising on all three dimensions in a hybrid approach
  • Forgoing a token offering entirely until this becomes more cost-effective

However, each of these current approaches is sub-optimal, and a solution is needed to the compliance trilemma.

The study also explored how industry experts expected the compliance trilemma to be resolved and found that the majority tended to advocate new regulatory rules and definitions that could relax what they see as the “burden” of compliance on issuers. Such an approach places the onus squarely on regulators, who would need to coordinate within and across jurisdictions to reach a coherent regulatory framework that appeases the challenges and costs of compliance for issuers. However, we argue that holding regulators solely accountable for the compliance trilemma is incomplete and misguided, and that other approaches are needed to reduce the costs and uncertainties of regulatory compliance.

 

Read the research by downloading the report here

 

About iComply Investor Services Inc.
iComply Investor Services Inc. (iComply) is an award-winning software company focused on reducing regulatory friction in the capital markets. With powerful data, verification, tokenization solutions, iComply helps companies overcome the cost and complexity of multi-jurisdictional compliance to effectively access new markets. Learn more: iComplyIS.com