US listed crypto exchange Coinbase has reached a $100mn settlement with New York regulators for anti money laundering failures including a backlog of more than 100,000 unreviewed transactions and a reliance on social media profiles to verify customers’ identities.
The New York State Department of Financial Services said on Wednesday that Coinbase would pay a $50mn fine for weak compliance measures and would spend a further $50mn on a two-year programme to improve its systems.
The DFS said Coinbase’s systems for enforcing anti money laundering rules had been “immature and inadequate”, leaving the exchange “vulnerable to serious criminal conduct” including “examples of fraud, possible money laundering, suspected child sexual abuse material-related activity, and potential narcotics trafficking”.