Ikenna Ekwerike

As part of efforts to strengthen investor confidence in digital currency trading, Paxful, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace, has announced partnership with Jumio, a digital identity and address verification company, with the aim to improve Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures and also implement Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements on the virtual marketplace.

In a statement, the company disclosed that Jumio’s AI-powered Trusted Identity Service and verification process would help minimise risk and ensure all users have submitted proper documentation.

The release stated that the new measure was necessary to check fraud and maintain compliance when onboarding users in order to continue to enrich the community that already exists on the Paxful platform.

“By adding Jumio’s ID Verification to the platform, Paxful has taken a stance to improve its AML procedures and compliance program in every operating country.

“Paxful is constantly improving to protect honest customers in the marketplace. The company boasts a growing community of consumers in Africa; and their feedback has been vitally important in advancing security and compliance on its peer-to-peer marketplace,” the statement explained.

How this would be implemented the statement revealed: “Through Jumio’s AI-powered Trusted Identity Service, Paxful will now be able to verify customers’ real-world identities, with a simple ID scan and real-time biometric authentication and liveness detection which will go into full effect in April.

“Paxful will now require users around the world who reach an equivalent of USD $1,500 in trade volume or wallet activity to verify their accounts through ID verification.

“In addition, users who reach USD $10,000 in trade volume or wallet activity must provide ID verification as well as address verification.”

Also, Paxful disclosed that it has unveiled its new Compliance and Information Security team headed by Lana Schwartzman as Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) with a 14 year experience in compliance and anti-money laundering services.

She was a manager in the Regulatory and Compliance Risk Group at Grant Thornton LLP. Her compliance experience included working in Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.

With Lana is Dmitry Moiseev as Information Security Manager. Dmitry has over 12 years of experience in Information Security and is an expert in high-risk personal data security in the financial sector. Prior to joining Paxful, he was an Information and Security Manager at Western Union.

Schwartzman, thus, assured of high professionalism, saying: “We take compliance and security very seriously here at Paxful. We’re hoping that these and other upcoming changes will help our customers understand the importance of regulation and compliance when it comes to operating on a peer-to-peer finance marketplace. Paxful now reaches over 2 million people worldwide through our P2P trading platform.

“When operating at such great numbers dedication to strong security measures that align with a future goal of enhanced oversight and compliance, will provide a better customer experience by affording a greater degree of trust and transparency for all customers.”