[107288] in Cypherpunks
Re: REx on KYC (was Re: Reason-Express: REx1, v. 2)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Fri Jan 8 17:58:22 1999
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 16:11:34 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 13:27:43 -0500
From: Pelle Braendgaard <pelle@aquamedia.net>
Subject: Re: REx on KYC (was Re: Reason-Express: REx1, v. 2)
To: dbs@philodox.com
Sender: <dbs@philodox.com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:requests@philodox.com?subject=subscribe%20dbs>
>At 2:09 PM -0500 on 1/4/99, Jeff Taylor wrote:
..
>> If that is not creepy enough, the recommendation can be traced to an
>> international group with scant appreciation for the Bill of Rights, the
>> Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD normally
>> concerns itself with dry economic matters, but is also home to your basic
>> European bureaucrat out to remake the world. To that end, they have been
>> marching forward in the quest for perfect information on banking
>>customers for
>> a decade.
This implies that it is mainly european countries who are pushing this. I
havent been following it to closely myself, but according to people I've
talked to in the Offshore industry the main force in this group is the US,
with the IRS being the main "culprit". This is not to say that the other
G7 countries aren't interested in this information them selves.
Many "offshore" jurisdictions are being forced to take on the KYC rule.
Dependent teritories of England and Holland are particularly being forced
by their parent governments to change laws fundamental to their economic
existence.
The main concensus is that the US is forcing them to do so. If England and
Holland wanted this kind of information from their dependent territiories
before, they could have easily have forced rules on them before.
Independent "offshore" territories are also being put under pressure.
Several Offshore professionals I talked with mentioned a policy of black
listing countries that dont comply. Main examples being Belize (for not
complying with SEC orders) and Antigua.
This black listing is supposed to black list any corporations registered as
well as individuals holding assets in those countries as money launderers.
Making it hard for them to carry on financial transactions with the rest of
the world.
This is ofcourse what they told me. FINCEN's web site is filled with anti
money laundering retoric and not much in the way of facts.
-Pelle
--- end forwarded text
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
