Post
Topic
Board Trading Discussion
Re: Mt.Gox AML/KYC Process Explained
by
Mt.Gox Support
on 14/06/2012, 02:29:02 UTC
People have to understand one thing, we, and this will apply to any other Exchange at some point, have to follow government and banks rules. Do we like these rules? Not always. Do we enjoy enforcing them? Hell no! Do we have a choice? Not at ALL!

Unless all of you start mining BTC, uses these Bitcoins to pay stuff in Bitcoins and never ever cash out or buy Bitcoins, we will have to follow these rules, coz at ANY GIVEN TIME, if we are not capable to give the proper documentation that a Bank for example need for a deposit or a withdraw they will use this opportunity to shut us down from using their service again. And I am not talking about huge amounts there but if they want to be a pain in the XXX they will and this even for $10.

Banks rules are different from one Bank to another and they totally control us since we NEED them to help you to cash in or out. They are totally closed and will never give you any reasons or details on why a wire is blocked or why they start investigating a certain transfer. And with their Terror list, if you are unfortunate enough to bear the same name as a person in this watch list, hell will fall over us.

At the beginning they did not really care about us, so we could do pretty much everything we wanted, opening an account there, offering such service, but since :
1) We grew and started to handle a lot of money
2) The popularity of Bitcoin and the Risk for them

Banks are scrutinizing our every move.

Now sure you can go to another exchange and we totally understand that, but if tomorrow XYZ Exchange start handling as much as we are handling, they will face the same problems as we do and they will become as "unpopular" as we are.

So at this point there are not many solutions. And our goal is to make sure that we are as CLEAN as possible in the eyes of these people in order to continue to help Bitcoin to move forward. Sometimes we are rather "aggressive" on these aspects and ask more than what an average bank may ask or need clearer documents, but this is in NO WAY to bother you but just to tell Governments and Banks that we are doing things by the books and that we are in no way criminals!

We know that there are many things that need to improve, and we are working on it, unfortunately and since we are working at an international level there are many things that need to be done at the same time which is slowing us down. Things take time and time is something that with Internet and IT Success have radically change in the eyes of many people where things are moving at Light speed, but when it comes to Banks and Government, time is set on another scale that frustrate all of us. The best example I have for you, and I cannot go too much in details, is when we explain to a Government entity what is Bitcoin and what would be the perfect set of rules that we must follow to make sure that we can continue our business in peace. After our lawyer gave them all documentation, met them at several occasions, we asked, when can you give us an answer? They replied : We cannot commit to any time on this matter and it will take as much time as needed to get back to you...

So yes we understand your frustration, yes we are working on improving this Process, Yes we have some solution in mind to help you, but remember that we do not do that to bother you, but we do that in order to protect everyone's assets here and make sure that the service is running smoothly. And more Bitcoin will become popular more things will get complicated. After all if any Government or Banks does not need to make Bitcoin illegal to stop it, they can easily do it by forcing Exchange out of the equation and making impossible for people to cash in or cash out.

PS Sorry for this long speech and for the many mistakes it may contain, I wrote this on my way to the office.