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Comment by aNoob7000 | Hacker News Reader

Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Know Your Customer (KYC). I'm going out on a limb to say that most tech companies have no idea what BSA or KYC means and the paperwork involved.

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Facebook Payments Inc is a state licensed Money Transmitter in all states, and is registered with FinCEN as a Money Services Business so they would certainly understand the requirements as they're subject to audits by State regulators.

Source: https://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/EntityDetails.aspx/COMPAN...; https://www.fincen.gov/msb-registrant-search

As someone who works for Google (opinions are my own) on the payments team, I disagree. :)

Due to P2P, and disbursements we do for Play developers and AdSense, we are heavily invested in KYC. And we have to comply with the regulations of all countries we do business in, not just the US.

Just curious, do you have to deal with OFAC controls?

U.S. persons must comply with OFAC regulations, including all U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens regardless of where they are located, all persons and entities within the United States, all U.S. incorporated entities and their foreign branches.

Source: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Sanctions/Page...

Facebook already knows more about you than KYC requires.

That said, according to Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2019/06/30/the-r...), they'll comply with KYC/AML. I can't find a statement direct from Facebook on that, though.

Facebook only knows what I put into my Facebook registration form. Did they verify anything? No. Email me for government identification? No.

Can Facebook comply with KYC/AML type regulations? Yes. But that I'm aware of, they currently don't do anything of the sort with all their users.

They know what you put in the registration form, every device and IP address you've ever used, who your friends are, who you parents are, who your coworkers are, what websites you visit, what stores you shop at, who you're likely to vote for, and a whole lot more.

I think they can verify my identity without a copy of my driver license.

If you are doing something illegal, I doubt you would connect with all your friends and family. If you do, you deserve jail time.

True. But I wouldn't be surprised to see additional verification required for new Facebook accounts (or those with little to no history/network) to use Libra. We shall see.

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