I believe on exchanges this is in order to maintain KYC compliance, in an effort to thwart money laundering.
AML rules can be complex, but it also has trivial rules like if the occupation of a person and the amount of the money he exchanges do not make sense, the transaction will be flagged and reported to the central bank. The transaction will go through, but will be reported to the central bank using a webservice or as a monthly report. Its upto the central bank to investigate it further.