The transaction monitoring process must be risk-based and must match the outcomes of the crypto service provider's integrity risk analysis. Risk-based in this context means that the transaction monitoring process must be clearly aligned to the risk sensitivity to money laundering or terrorist financing of the type of customer, business relationship, product or transaction.
DNB expects crypto service providers to create a customer profile including an expected transaction profile for all customers during the onboarding process. Deviations from this profile or expected behaviour should prompt the service provider to analyse a transaction and assess whether it should be earmarked as unusual.
The Annex to the Wwft Implementation Decree lists the indicators for assessing unusual transactions. This decree is currently under review. The following indicators must be considered.
The objective indicator describes situations in which transactions must always be reported. The Annex to the Wwft Implementation Decree includes requirements for providers of exchange services between virtual currencies and fiduciary currencies and virtual currency wallet providers. A link will be available here once the Decree has been finalised.
The subjective indicator forces an institution to report a transaction if there are reasons to suspect that the transaction may be related to money laundering or terrorist financing. This indicator applies to every institution that falls under the scope of the Wwft. The institution must assess whether a particular transaction should be reported because of a possible link to money laundering or terrorist financing.
Crypto service providers must be aware of the relevant market circumstances and risks in order to be able to recognise whether a transaction qualifies as unusual. Risks may vary with each type of product, customer and size of the activities. Crypto service providers must be aware of relevant market trends with respect to the products and services they offer. For example, DNB expects them to know the specific characteristics of the currencies in which they provide services, and of “contaminated” currencies in particular. They should also know about possible future developments such as “forks” and be able to earmark transactions as unusual based on their knowledge.