Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd. (OKX Seychelles, “the Company”), a subsidiary of OKX, today settled an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, admitting that the Company conducted money transfer business in the U.S. without permission. In this case, the Company admitted that a small number of U.S. customers had traded on the Company’s global platform due to historical compliance controls deficiencies.
The number of U.S. clients involved was a small fraction of the company’s global clientele, and all of them have been cleared. In the settlement, there were no allegations of customer harm, no charges were brought against any company employees, and no government monitor was appointed. To reach this settlement, the company agreed to pay an $84 million fine and give up approximately $421 million in revenue from U.S. clients during the period, most of which came from a small number of institutional clients.
When the Company became aware of these deficiencies, we proactively engaged a compliance consultant to assist in resolving the issues and improving our compliance systems, and we plan to continue to work with the consultant in the future. As the DOJ noted in its settlement agreement in the case, the Company cooperated with the DOJ and appreciates its assistance.
OKX is proud to be a crypto platform trusted by tens of millions of people around the world and has always strictly complied with local laws and regulations in all the countries where we operate. We started as a startup and have taken proactive steps to address our shortcomings over time, and this spirit is also reflected in this settlement.
We are pleased with this settlement and look forward to continuing to expand our global business footprint while maintaining OKX’s position as the world’s most trusted and technologically innovative crypto platform.
The settlement follows OKX’s significant progress in building a strong compliance infrastructure: This settlement signals OKX’s continued commitment to building an excellent compliance system, deepening regulatory cooperation, and promoting credibility across the crypto industry. This settlement reflects our growth and enables OKX to continue working with regulators to provide solutions that benefit our customers across the crypto market.
Commitment to Compliance
At OKX, compliance is at the core of our business operations, and we take our responsibility to establish a high-standard compliance system very seriously. Over the past two years, OKX has built and continued to invest in a rigorous risk-based global compliance system that includes a series of key initiatives to strengthen supervision, platform security, and the effectiveness of the entire compliance system:
• Strengthen our global Know Your Customer (KYC) system and Customer Risk Rating (CRR) system to identify and assess customers’ risk profile from the time they register to their entire lifecycle on the platform.
• Expand the Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) program to better mitigate high-risk factors that may exist within exchanges.
•Deploy industry-leading anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions tools, including proprietary detection systems and behavior-based transaction monitoring systems (TMS), as well as real-time and post-event detection to curb a wide range of illegal activities.
•Established a financial crime and on-chain investigation team of more than 150 professionals with extensive experience in law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and actively cooperates with law enforcement agencies around the world.
•Implemented advanced geo-blocking and tracking technologies to combat potential fraud and attempts to circumvent compliance controls.
•Having integrated multiple third-party solutions, we firmly believe that it is critical to provide our customers with an open, fair and transparent market.
These measures ensure that OKX remains at the forefront of compliance as the global regulatory environment continues to evolve and enable the company to continue to promote the building of trust and integrity within the crypto ecosystem.
Global Regulatory Cooperation and Future Outlook
OKX is committed to continuous compliance construction, providing products and services that meet regulatory requirements in multiple jurisdictions around the world. At the same time, it maintains close cooperation with global law enforcement agencies, and its achievements in combating cryptocurrency-related financial crimes, terrorist financing and evasion of sanctions have also been widely recognized.
As the crypto industry continues to evolve, OKX continues to drive innovation while focusing on compliance, setting a benchmark for transparency, compliance, and user security. The company takes full responsibility for past shortcomings and is committed to moving forward - creating a safe, compliant, and trustworthy platform for global customers, employees, and partners.
