What is Travel Rule?

The Travel Rule requires financial institutions participating in a cryptocurrency transaction (aka VASPs: Virtual Asset Service Providers) to exchange relevant beneficiary and originator KYC information. Any business holding crypto on behalf of their customers (a VASP) is required to implement the Travel Rule for transactions over a certain threshold sent to customers of another VASP. The specific threshold amount is determined by each national regulator. FATF has recommended it be set to US$1000.

What information needs to be included in the Travel Rule request?​

Primarily you need to include the following information:

• The asset to be transferred (eg. BTC)

• Amount of asset to be transferred

• Information about the Originating Customer. Each country will have different requirements, but generally may include:

  • Name

  • Account number or blockchain address

  • Physical Address

  • Identity number eg. National ID number or Passport number

• Information about the Beneficiary Customer

  • Name

  • Account number or blockchain address

The industry has convened on the IVMS101 standard data model for defining this, which is supported in its entirety by Defy.