Skip to main content
Search

Global Travel Rule Introduction

What is Travel Rule​

Travel Rule is a FATF(Financial Action Task Force) regulatory requirement that mandates financial institutions and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to share basic personal identification information (PII) of sender and receiver when transferring funds or crypto assets.

Purpose: to increase transparency to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

Scope: originally applied to traditional finance, now extended to crypto.

Who needs to comply with Travel Rule​

If you are a financial institution or VASP located in any of the FATF-member countries, you will be required to comply with the FATF Recommendations, including the FATF Travel Rule.

According to the FATF's definition, a VASP conducts one or more of the following activities or operation:

  • Exchange: Trading virtual assets for fiat currencies or for other virtual assets.
  • Transfer: Facilitating the movement of virtual assets from one user to another.
  • Safekeeping and/or Administration: Storing and managing virtual assets or the instruments that give control over them.
  • Financial Services: participation in and provision of financial services related to an issuer's offer and/or sale.

FATF Travel Rule Requirements​

According to the FATF's recommendation, Travel Rule requires both VASPs to collect personal identifying information on participants in crypto transactions exceeding 1,000 USD/EUR.

As of today, different jurisdictions have different transaction threshold amounts. For VASPs, this means gathering identifying information of both senders and recipients:

  • physical address,
  • unique ID number (national identity number, etc.),
  • customer identification number, or date and place of birth.

GTR​

The GTR (Global Travel Rule) was created in 2022 to provide a compliance infrastructure and system for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). GTR's mission is to pave the way for a unified blockchain security channel for customers and VASPs. The GTR follows the recommendations of the FATF, it allows disclosing of hand picked customer data when needed by and as required once a specific threshold has been met.

Core Advantages​

Global Competence: The GTR aims to exceed global needs for VASPs travel rule, following the recommendation of the FATF.

Uncompromising Security: The security of user data is our top priority. Hence GTR requires all users to utilize an end-to-end encryption algorithm (e.g. Curve25519) or hashing methods to encrypt all data without exceptions. This ensures that GTR, or any other intermediary, cannot decrypt the data or access to the plaintext of PII.

Seamless Integration: The GTR assures seamless integration of its modules, the easiest integration model globally.