As an FCA registered CryptoAssets business, the security of your funds is Solidi’s number one priority.

From 1st September 2023, new regulations known as the “Travel Rule” come into force in the UK. These regulations require Crypto businesses in the UK, to take additional measures to help prevent scams, fraud and other financial crime.

Complying with the Travel Rule requires CryptoAsset businesses to exchange additional information when sending and receiving crypto funds, similar to the way your bank checks the name on the bank account that you send funds to (known as Confirmation of Payee). Like with your bank account check, this helps to ensure that you don’t accidentally send funds to the wrong destination and lowers the chances of scammers convincing you to send funds to them.

From the 1st September we will be updating our deposit and withdraw process to request some additional information about the destination of your transfer:

• who you are transferring to / from
• what the source or destination is (another exchange / your own wallet / Ledger Nano etc)

When sending to crypto businesses in countries which have also implemented the Travel Rule, we will use this information to check with the source or destination of the transfer that the names match. If these don’t match, there will be a delay with the transfer, until we get the correct details from you and in some cases, we may not be able to send the funds. We advise that you make sure that names match exactly – so avoid using abbreviations or an alias.

In preparation for this, we are updating our terms and conditions to cover the exchanging of information with the sending and receiving business. You can see the new terms and conditions here.

FAQ

Below are some of the questions we have already fielded from customers, but we are sure you will have more – please contact us and we’ll get back to you (and update these FAQ’s!).

Q. What information are you sending?
For withdraws, we are sending your first and last name and a unique customer number only used for transfers. This information is sent encrypted and can only be decoded by the destination exchange or wallet. For deposits, the sender will send your name – if it is correct we will confirm this and allow the transfer. If it is incorrect, we will refuse the transfer. Importantly, if the sender doesn’t know your name, we won’t reveal it to them.

Q. Is my information sent securely?
Yes – we encrypt all information sent with the same encryption used by your bank and when you are making purchases online.

Q. How does this work with my phone or hardware wallet?
Some phone wallets and most hardware wallets (such as Ledger and Trezor) are known as “unhosted” or “non-custodial” wallets. With these wallets, only you are in control of the private keys or the 12/24 word seed phrase – there is no business that manages these on your behalf. This means that with unhosted wallets, we cannot perform a name check and will in most cases, simply send the funds. We may, however, ask you to provide proof that the wallet is an unhosted wallet.

Q. What if I don’t want you to send my information?
Your security and privacy is our number one priority. However, in the UK, all cryptoasset exchanges are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and with this comes certain requirements, including protecting customers (and the wider general public) from financial crime. As such, we are legally obligated to perform these name checks.

Q. What exactly are these new rules?
These rules are the UK Money Laundering Regulations 2022 (si 860) Part 7A (pages 3 to 8).