Bithumb, one of South Korea’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, will stop accepting foreign user registrations and block access for traders in four other countries that have been added to a money laundering watchlist. silver.

The cryptocurrency exchange will no longer receive exchange requests from foreign users starting at 3 p.m. on August 13. The same rule will be applied to foreign citizens in South Korea who do not have an alien registration card, he said.

Registrations and transactions will be suspended for users in four additional countries – the Philippines, Malta, Haiti and South Sudan – which have been newly designated by the Financial Action Task Force. The FATF is an intergovernmental body that sets international standards to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing on a global scale.

Adding the four countries to the watch list last month, the FATF underscored the need for increased oversight of the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing framework.

The watchlist has a total of 24 countries, including two blacklisted countries: North Korea and Iran. Countries that support terrorist financing and money laundering are blacklisted while countries remaining on the watch list are seen as safe havens for these activities, according to the task force.

Local digital asset exchanges are stepping up their measures on KYC (Know Your Customer), the process of verifying the identity of their customers and the fight against money laundering by the end of September.

The revised law requires cryptocurrency exchanges to know the customer and necessary anti-money laundering measures by September 24.

Bithumb is the country’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume.

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