Glossary

Anti-Money Laundering (AML)

1 min read

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) is a category of laws and regulations that are intended to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, tax evasion, and other illicit activities.

Most AML laws place requirements on financial institutions for keeping detailed records of their customers’ transactions and interactions so as to enable authorities to track the financial history of any customer.Additionally, financial institutions must often take a variety of steps to prevent illicit money transfers ahead of time. One such requirement of AML is Know Your Customer (KYC) laws, which require a financial institution to verify the identities of their customers.

Bitcoin brokerages and exchanges which take custody of user funds are subject to AML compliance in order to prevent money from being laundered between Bitcoin and other currencies. However, AML compliance varies significantly across jurisdictions.