Brazilian Bank Joins Hands w/ Chainalysis, Steps Up Crypto Compliance

Things are hotting up for crypto users in Brazil, where commercial bank Banco Topázio has announced that it will be using monitoring and transaction tracking solutions provided by blockchain security firm and data analysis specialist, Chainalysis – to monitor the crypto services it provides to its clients.

In a Chainalysis press release, the companies stated that they would use the security firm’s software for compliance-related purposes in Banco Topázio’s business operations.

The bank appears to be looking to get a head start on forthcoming regulatory change, with the press release’s author writing of the need to “establish best practices ahead of [the] enforcement of FATF guidelines.”

The bank will also launch KYT (know-your-transaction) and KYC (know-your-customer) protocols.

The bank stated that the move would help it ”validate customers’ activity through the monitoring and analysis of their transactions, all publicly registered on the blockchain.”

Banco Topázio is one of Brazil’s newest banks – and like many banks set up in the past 20-30 years in the country, has no brick-and-mortar outlets, with all of its processes fully digitized.

It is one of the more crypto-keen of Brazil’s banks, and in February this year announced a partnership with America’s Ripple, becoming part of the latter’s RippleNet network.

However, Brazilian banks and crypto have been uneasy bedfellows for much of this year.

As previously reported, Caixa Econômica, the biggest 100% government-owned financial institution in Latin America and one of Brazil’s three biggest banks, reportedly froze the accounts of multiple crypto traders within the space of 10 days earlier this month.

Many of the country’s leading crypto exchanges are also still involved in a bitter legal struggle against banks who they say arbitrarily suspended their banking operations in 2018 and 2019.