Zachary Kelman, managing partner at Kelman Law PLLC, joins the show to shed light on the FATF – it's origins and its current mandate – the travel rule, and what the industry can expect from these developments. Covered in this episode:
- Zach's prior career in bank compliance and how he decided to focus on Bitcoin
- How Zach noticed the blurring of lines between stopping crime and politics for bank AML
- Why overseas payments in the correspondent bank system are expensive
- What the Travel Rule actually means
- Why Zach thinks Bitcoin compares favorably with the default correspondent banking system
- Why banks freeze out certain sectors even without a specific ban or prohibition
- How Coins.ph moved the needle for financial inclusion in the Philippines
- The history of the FATF and its original mandate and intent
- Why the FATF's recommendation could possibly bifurcate the bitcoin market
- How the end of the Cold War might have influenced the creation of the FATF
- What Fukuyama's End of History has to do with financial crimes enforcement
- Will the decline of the US-led international order mean organizations like the FATF will have a reduced ability to police global finance
- Zach's thesis that western Europe might end up being a haven for the crypto industry
- How the FATF recommendations actually get enforced at the local level
- How the FATF black and graylists change bank behavior
- Why NYDFS has so much control over global finance
- How bank behavior in the US is often more norm based than couched in law
- Why a rise of nationalism could advantage Bitcoin
