Crypto-friendly digital payments giant Paypal has been added to the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST) network, joining a number of big names in cryptocurrencies who have moved to comply with digital asset travel rules.
The announcement comes two months after the payment giant rolled out infrastructure that allows users to transfer, send and receive digital assets between PayPal and other wallets and exchanges in June of this year. Previously, users could only buy and sell cryptocurrencies within Paypal after the company’s initial leap into the industry in October 2020.
You can now easily use your cryptocurrencies with PayPal. Enter it in PayPal and send it to friends and family, all in one place. https://t.co/k24TVHoSYh pic.twitter.com/v0CeV9dNXa
– PayPal (@PayPal) August 15, 2022
TRUST was launched by a group of 18 US virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in February, with the participation of big hitters like Coinbase, Paxos, Circle, Kraken and Robinhood from the start. The number has since increased to 38 now that Paypal has joined the ranks.
“The addition of PayPal marks another milestone in TRUST’s journey to become the global and industry standard solution for travel rules compliance,” Coinbase noted in an August 23 announcement.
Under Rule 31 of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), more commonly known as the “Travel Rule,” US VASPs are legally required to disclose specific information relating to client fund transfers from one financial institution to another. The threshold for identifying fund transfers, and the people behind them, starts at $ 1,000.
Big day for the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST) network as we welcome the leader in digital payments @PayPal. Our industry-oriented solution for balancing travel rules compliance with protecting customer privacy and security is now 38 strong. https://t.co/OybFRjbmwU pic.twitter.com/eKmAYHBoLQ
– Circle (@circlepay) August 22, 2022
Therefore, the US VASP group launched TRUST to simplify reporting and make information sharing between them easier and more transparent. TRUST uses a solution that consists of two main features; a centralized bulletin board to identify each VASP party on both ends of a transaction and an encrypted point-to-point (P2P) channel to exchange data securely.
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The group was formed in response to a recommendation from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in June 2021 for VASPs around the world to adopt specific principles in order to maintain compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorist financing ( ATF) policies.