4 September Beijing-PBoC released a notice on banning all ICOs in China along with other six commissions. On the statement, ICO is described as “an authorized illegal public financing conduct”. Following the regulatory order, more ICO-related platforms and projects announced refunding plan, including NEO, QTUM, BTM etc. But there is more specific regulation on the way. Following the “ICO Ban” order immediately, PBoC Beijing Branch released a guideline targeting bank accounts of ICO platforms and individuals.

“Suspicious accounts might be frozen. “

As reported by thepaper , Beijing Operation Management Department of PBoC issued an notice to banks and payment institutions under its custody on 4 September, implementing payment and settlement management of bank accounts connected to ICO platforms and individuals.

In accordance with the “No.99 Notice” requirements, all financial institutions and non-bank payment agencies shall not carry out any business related to token financing transactions.

The Notice also requires that:

“Financial institutions and non-bank payment agencies shall not provide service or product like account opening, registration, trading, clearing and settlement for token financing and “virtual currency”.

In addition, the banks and payment agencies shall not open new account for ICO platforms and monitor the existing accounts on a daily basis.

“Financial institutions and non-bank payment agencies should promptly report to authorities if they detect leads to illegal token financing. “

In simple words, commercial banks and third payment processors like Alipay could block bank accounts of ICO platform and individual’s account alike.

“Individual accounts related to the 6 ICO platforms must be identified. Large amount or frequent deposit and withdrawal will be restricted. Immediate restrictive measure should be taken on accounts that are in line with suspicious AML reporting standards and report to authority timely.”

The 6 ICO platforms mentioned in the notice are mostly unknown to cryptocurrency circles, which makes them more suspicious or more likely linked to MLM schemes. So far one of the six ICO platform listed in the notice is no longer accessible. Other platforms all display the “ICO Ban” order on their front pages. It might be considered a good-intention move for authorities to ban ICO before more financial loss happened to potential victims of pyramid schemes pretending to be blockchain innovation.

“The rectification just begins. The data-reporting work for financial institutions and payment processor will not stop until the rectification ends.”

An undisclosed source said.

The daily report with information like closing balance in previous day and transaction detail must be submitted to Beijing Office before 9AM every day.