In the middle of this year, the wave of frozen cards hit, countless OTC merchants were frozen by card blocking, and the encryption market was turbulent. So what is the logic for freezing cards at the regulatory and bank levels? Understanding these will help reduce the chance of being frozen.
This year is the year when the People’s Bank of China cracked down on money laundering. Due to the failure of RMB-cryptocurrency to comply with regulations, OTC merchants walking on the fringe became the targets of the crackdown. Many OTC merchants ceased their business, and the industry was bleak.
Recently, many OTC merchants have been on the central bank’s “disciplinary list”, and all bank cards under their personal status have stopped non-counter transactions. “No cards can be opened for five years, and non-counter cards cannot be opened for three years.”
This means that in addition to the traditional public security system investigations-frozen cards, OTC merchants have also begun active supervision by banks and central banks, and the latter’s crackdown is increasing.
The logic of what happened is:
Because the People’s Bank of China cracked down on money laundering this year, but delegated responsibilities and obligations to major banks and financial institutions. Under this circumstance, bank anti-money laundering monitoring has become very strict, and any account opening needs to be reviewed by the anti-money laundering system.
Rumor has it that a certain local bank directly stopped all card-issuing operations in order to combat money laundering. Wu said that the blockchain has also disclosed that China Merchants Bank has hit the hardest, and the currency circle freezes the card tide (6): China Merchants Bank’s “crazy” closure of the currency circle multi-person credit cards were frozen, and a large number of credit cards were directly frozen.
In this case, because mainstream banks have a large amount of user data and transaction data, the recognition of money laundering and virtual currency transactions through artificial intelligence and other algorithms will be more sensitive, so the probability of mainstream banks freezing cards is higher.
According to people familiar with the matter, the specific process is that after the bank’s own system has alarmed and restricted transactions, it will report to the central banks of various regions. After review, the central bank will issue a corresponding list of punishments. Finally, the so-called “no card opening for five years, three years Similar punishments such as “non-cabinet” are not allowed.
On September 18, the Guangxi Public Security Bureau and the Nanning Central Branch of the People’s Bank of China announced the first batch of 1091 people who bought and sold bank accounts. Individuals who were punished would be suspended from their bank account non-counter business and payment account business within 5 years. No new accounts are allowed. Also announced are Quanzhou, Putian, Wenzhou, Laibin and other places.
Guangxi is a place where MLM cases are frequent. On May 20, a Nanning OTC merchant was suspected of assisting in money laundering by criminals in telecommunication fraud.
Although some OTC merchants have entered the disciplinary list, the current public information is more focused on “suspicion of buying and selling accounts, imposing account opening-related units and individuals, and new types of illegal criminal cases on telecommunications networks.” However, such behavior often occurs in OTC transactions of cryptocurrencies. Some merchants engaged in RMB OTC will require employees to use personal bank cards for transactions.
Huobi, the largest OTC platform, recently conducted a wave of PRs. The external message is that normal cryptocurrency transactions are not illegal, and only those involving black money and illicit assets will be frozen, and that Huobi has already responded to this. A lot of technical prevention and control have been carried out.
But in fact, because there are no corresponding rules and regulations, various financial institutions have different judgment standards for cryptocurrency transactions. Strictly such as China Merchants Bank, cryptocurrency transactions are always part of anti-money laundering. In 2018, China Merchants Bank Hong Kong Branch issued an announcement: According to relevant requirements, if China Merchants Bank Hong Kong Branch finds that the transaction involves virtual currency in the customer’s account, its account may be terminated.
Industry insiders pointed out that based on the current situation, it is not only black money that will be frozen. The act of buying and selling cryptocurrency itself may also trigger the bank’s risk control mechanism. However, the latter is relatively controllable for individuals and seldom completely freezes; for OTC merchants, they have to use other people’s accounts, but this may be investigated again and even enter the “blacklist”.
