Compliance Officers In Trying Times As Cryptocurrency Gets To The Mainstream

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Compliance Officers In Trying Times As Cryptocurrency Gets To The Mainstream

Major financial institutions around the globe understand the intricacies that pull along in the course of cryptocurrency trading. Business dynamics are a usual and they shouldn’t be a cause for alarm for any established business.

However, there is need for all the major financial institutions  to make prior preparations in order to guard themselves from any sort of conflicts that might arise whenever the various employees get to trade digital coins in their personal accounts.

A person familiar with the most recent developments said, “Until recently, banks, brokerages and exchanges had largely steered clear of the crypto-craze, even as they invested in blockchain, the technology that underpins No. 1 digital currency bitcoin, in hopes that they could use it for other types of transactions.”

The persistent rise in the prices of digital coins has been attracting investor interest in a rather significant way. Banks such as Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) have been looking into the various ways in which they could make it easy for them to clear trades.

The passage of time is witnessing the trading in virtual currencies move to the mainstream and the one notable aspect is that the compliance departments have started paying much closer attention.

A partner at law firm Eversheds Sutherland called Gregory Kaufman said that for over quite some time they had been seeing a large number of companies seeking compliance policies around cryptocurrencies. According to him, it could be as a result of the purported danger in line with front-running and insider trading.

The feeling among most of the employees is that they could do a lot without the employer catching up with them. That is because of the pseudo-anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies.

It could culminate to a major conflict if employees involved with blockchain projects and cryptocurrency proceeded to place bets with unfair advantage. Basically, all employees need to be cleared before moving ahead to trade in any in any securities that could lead to a conflict of interest. The firms are usually determined to monitor employee holdings and that is of course through obtaining the reports they need from brokers.

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