The SEC has sent a circular to digital asset business operators to comply with the guidelines of the Thai Digital Asset Business Association (TDO) on the consideration of accounts suspected of being used in crimes in order to ensure efficient checks and know your customer (KYC) and prevent the use of digital assets as a channel for money laundering.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that the SEC recognizes the importance of preventing and suppressing technology crimes, which is a problem that the government is urgently addressing and implementing in an integrated manner to prevent and alleviate the suffering and damages that have occurred to the public. This is to build credibility for the digital asset industry in Thailand and prevent fraudsters from conducting transactions to buy and sell digital assets through digital asset business operators. The SEC has continuously integrated cooperation with relevant agencies.
On 21 February 2024, the SEC coordinated with TDO and the Economic Cri
me Suppression Division (ECD) to address technology crimes. A workshop was organized to exchange information among digital asset business operators. On 7 May 2024, TDO issued a guideline on the consideration of accounts suspected of being used in crimes for TDO member operators to use as guidelines for monitoring customers and transactions that may be related to technology crimes. Knowing the identity of customers (KYC) and checking suspicious customer transactions are important measures to prevent fraudsters from being able to conduct digital asset transactions and use digital assets as a channel for transferring assets from crimes. On 18 October 2024, the SEC issued a circular to digital asset exchange operators, digital asset brokers, and digital asset traders to implement TDO’s guideline on the consideration of accounts suspected of being used in crimes in order to support and integrate the prevention and suppression of technology crimes, as well as build credibility for the digital asset industry in Thai
land.
Mr. At Thongyai Asawanant, President of the Thai Digital Asset Business Association (TDO), said that the association is pushing for the growth of the Thai digital asset business and building credibility to make investors more confident, pushing for clear, transparent and fair laws and measures to build confidence among both domestic and foreign investors.
As for the issue of digital assets being related to money laundering tools, TDO has been cooperating with various agencies to monitor and report unusual transactions, including preventing the opening of mule accounts by strengthening the KYC process and working with commercial banks to conduct KYC, which can prevent illegal financial transactions.
In terms of the growth of the digital asset market, the trading value in 2023 was as high as 1.67 trillion baht, an increase of 94.19% from 2022. There are also important events at the international level, such as the launch of the Bitcoin ETF fund in the United States at the beginning of 2024 and the upco
ming Bitcoin halving, which are likely to significantly affect the price of Bitcoin and cause the trading value of digital assets in 2024 to increase accordingly. The customer base of entrepreneurs who are members of TDO has a total digital asset value of more than 2 billion baht from 23 members. -511-Thai News Agency
Source: Thai News Agency
