Vision & Mission
Sustainable Development Goal 16
SDG #16 calls for a reduction in illicit financial flows in order to promote peace and protect humans against exploitation, trafficking, and violence. ARYZE is creating a financial ecosystem in which money is entirely digital, and because of the nature of Blockchain technology, traceable. We can prevent money laundering and track illicit activities such as human trafficking and drug trading.
Anti-money Laundering
Completing KYC processes usually costs banks around USD 62 million yearly
Lead to money laundering
Money Laundering takes up about 1.2% of the EU´s total GDP
Mexican Drug Cartels launder at least USD 9 billion each year (5% of the country’s GDP)
Anti-money Laundering
TLDR: Money laundering is a huge problem, and it is estimated that it costs the economy anywhere between $800 billion and 2 trillion dollars every year. Countries have created laws and regulations to fight money laundering, but it is still hard to track because criminals are constantly coming up with new ways to launder money. ARYZE issues Digital Cash when they are bought by clients, on OTC desks, exchanges, and other platforms that follow KYC & AML processes. All on-/off ramps where ARYZE Digital Cash can be bought or redeemed are entities that are permitted to offer different types of assets.
When dirty money stemming from criminality such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, violence and embezzlement is successfully laundered by criminals it enters the economy in the guise of legitimate businesses or assets. According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, global money laundering accounts for anywhere between $800 billion and 2 trillion US dollars every year. Human and drug trafficking alone account for $500 billion in laundered money. Our current financial system is outdated and money easily becomes untraceable. AML regulations implemented to fight crime are very important, yet not easy to comply with, resulting in more barriers and time spent, for accessing financial services.
Crime and corruption are harmful to economic growth and this is particularly damaging to developing economies. Most recently we witnessed the Money Laundering scandal in Estonia involving Danske Bank, but to get a clearer picture of the many forms this kind of crime can take, let us imagine a huge building company offering its services to several governments offering to build crucial infrastructure such as bridges, metro lines etc that never become a reality. This is exactly what happened with Grupo Odebrecht, Latin America´s largest construction conglomerate in a scandal where dozens of companies acknowledged paying bribes to politicians and officials in exchange for contracts. Â
Money Laundering acts as a virus that infects healthy economies and destroys vulnerable ones. Launderers usually channel illegal funds through investment instruments, or they may simply perform wire transfers through a series of accounts at various banks around the globe.
Methods vary from the simple purchase of luxury items to more-sophisticated techniques involving the transfer of the money through a transnational network of banks and other financial institutions.
Countries worldwide have drafted and implemented regulations against money laundering, and global organisations like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) supervise the operations of the entire global finance industry.
However, Money Laundering remains hard to track mainly because the financial system is siloed and the venues for detection are still largely performed manually. Whereas, criminals become more creative and device new sophisticated ways for laundering illicit funds, regulations take time to adapt and implement.
FULLY AUTOMATED PROTOCOLS
ARYZE has different ways of combating money laundering, depending on the type of client and product. We are building a multi-tiered solution where anyone should be able to access basic financial services, and depending on the availability of documentation, users can request access to additional features.
ARYZE Digital Cash, the series of stablecoins offered by ARYZE, will only be made available on licensed platforms with strict KYC & AML policies in place. As we scale and progress, we will have to manage KYC & AML directly ourselves, as we will offer a client application ourselves called MAMA.
Users that use the MAMA application can instantly register an account with ARYZE, as we use cloud-native banking software paired with modern reg-tech solutions to validate and onboard users from most countries.
The 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive – what comes next?
The world’s anti-money laundering (AML) regime is evolving at a rapid pace in the fight against financial crime. A Refinitiv webinar has examined an important year for AML regulation, as well as the technology helping to streamline compliance.
The cost of money laundering is huge – let’s work together to stop it.
Money laundering is a crime that many people consider irrelevant to them. If a problem at all, they consider it a problem only for banks. That is far from true. Money laundering has massive effects not only on financial institutions, but also on governments, industries, economies and all individuals.
