Bithumb, a South Korean crypto exchange, would no longer enable users to transfer their crypto assets to unauthorised individual wallets as of January 27. Bithumb announced the news on January 24. Coinone, another crypto exchange of South Korea, earlier implemented a similar guideline late last month. Bithumb users in South Korea have now only two days to complete a new round of KYC to register their personal wallets, otherwise future crypto withdrawals of those users will be prohibited.
As per the policy guidelines, users can only activate their personal private wallets under the new regulation. A user must complete a know-your-customer (KYC) validation process in order to complete the registration procedure.
According to Money Today, the exchange was pressured to make the policy change by its partner bank, Nonghyup Bank, in order to ensure compliance with the FATF Travel Rule. The Travel Rule is intended to provide financial institutions with information on the sender and the receiver of cross-border payments.
All South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges supporting Korean Won (KRW) trading pairs must have a domestic partner bank. Such partner banks provide customers with real name bank accounts. It ensures that the individual trading on the crypto exchange are the same who are taking currency withdrawals from that exchange. This guideline assists exchanges in complying with the Travel Rule before the March 25 date.
If a user does not follow the Travel Rule guideline then he might face enhanced anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) scrutiny.
