Malta’s MFSA Collabs Up With CipherTrace to Reduce Financial Crimes Risks For Digital Assets

The Blockchain Island of the world, Malta is set on addressing and reducing the rate of cyber and digital crimes with the help of investigative firm, CipherTrace as per a press release by the Malta Financial Services Authority.

The MFSA announced on the 11th of March that the authority was dedicated to team up with CipherTrace to incorporate their Compliance Monitoring product in order to “protect consumers, investors and business partners.”

According to CipherTrace’s website, the technology allows “regulators to supervise crypto entities in their jurisdictions to make better-informed license-granting and renewal decisions,” “provides visibility into AML/CTF, potential fraud, tax reporting, and cross-border transactions” and “helps banks and other financial institutions determine which crypto asset businesses to accept as corporate customers.”

As per it’s website, the platform is the brainchild of “eCrime, Payment and FinTech experts and its cryptocurrency intelligence embodies their deep experience and cybercrime threats models.” Some of the features it offers include, “advanced attribution capabilities, very fast engine, powerful API, and machine learning algorithms that enable participants and governments to understand and manage crypto asset market risks.”

According to MFSA CEO Joseph Cuschieri;

“Being strongly aware of the money laundering and financing of terrorism risks associated with entities operating in this sphere, the decision has been taken to engage the services of CipherTrace in order to reduce fraud and detect transactions with illegal sources of funds.”

Talking about some of the barriers that come between crypto firms and financial backing, Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace said;

“Cryptocurrency businesses often have difficulty establishing trust and maintaining banking relationships because of their perceived risk. Banks and other financial institutions use the CipherTrace Compliance Monitoring Solution to help decide which virtual asset businesses to trust as corporate customers. These insights help banks avoid de-risking by turning away valuable customers in this lucrative and fast growing sector.

In 2018, the firm raised a whopping $15 million in venture capital investments for Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Security, Regulatory Compliance and Intelligence. Mark Kraynak from Aspect Ventures had this to say regarding the investment, “Great blockchain companies will be forged as crypto assets achieve mainstream adoption. We believe security and compliance with anti-money laundering and other financial regulations, as enabled by CipherTrace, will be a key first hurdle to mass adoption.”