What Efforts Are Being Done by Indian Crypto Exchanges to Protect P2P Users
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What Efforts Are Being Done by Indian Crypto Exchanges to Protect P2P Users
With the delay on the ban by the Supreme Court of India, the Indian crypto enthusiasts are now demanding for improved protection on the P2P trading platform. Many of the Indian crypto exchanges have shared their policies what they executed on securing P2P trading platform users.
A Standard KYC Protocol
With the significant postponing of hearing on the crypto crackdown, the Indian crypto traders will now have to go on acquiring and selling cryptos for INR using Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platform. Further, the Indian government has not considered to include the banning bill on crypto in the winter session of parliament.
Numerous local crypto exchanges started providing P2P trading platform to their users, since the ban what RBI has put on the financial institution from offering crypto-related services. Nonetheless, some of the people are confronting the concerns related to the usage of these platforms, as per the Indian news analysis platform, Crypto Kanoon. "Many users of P2P exchanges are facing bank accounts seizure and FIRs," Crypto Kanoon elaborated the previous week.
Further, Crypto Kanoon wrote:
"Do you think that the time has arrived when all the virtual assets services providers in India need to join hands together and design a standard protocol for KYC, AML & ATF? Especially when the draft bill will take time to get introduced in Loksabha."
“Don’t you think video KYC will help in controlling this growing menace?” Crypto Kanoon also directed the question to the exchanges. Crypto Kanoon also set up a poll on Twitter. In a poll, it asked the community whether they believe P2P exchanges required to accept standard KYC protocol. 84% of the votes were in favor of this and said 'Yes'.
Response From Crypto Exchanges
Many of the crypto exchanges answered to Crypto Kanoon's questions. Sohail Merchant, the CEO at a crypto exchange, Pocketbits detailed, his exchange has “already deployed a customized video KYC solution since May for P2P trades. You can be certain that the user you will be transacting with is thoroughly verified and not a scammer. We do have certain other comprehensive checks to verify authenticity too.”
Nischal Shetty, the CEO of Wazirx headlined, “For us, user safety is always number 1 priority." Further, he stated that his exchange has “stringent KYC processes." Regarding above-mentioned concerns, he stated:
"Our data does not show this to be a large problem. Isolated cases may be. Nevertheless, we’re working on solving these isolated issues and will announce measures at the right time."
Moreover, Nischal Shetty responded to a question of setting up standard protocol, "It is definitely a good idea if everyone agrees to get together and do it." But here he lifted another concern regarding the applicability of these standards. Binance has recently acquired his crypto exchange, Wazirx.
The CEO at Bitbns, Gaurav Dahake stated, his exchange would prefer video KYC. He further said, for now, users have to submit identity proof, address and recent selfie, Bitbns written and a signature. He added, "We run it through a couple of checks on the images and post that a team manually verifies it.”
Sumit Gupta, CEO at Coindcx stated his team takes security a very serious concern. “For KYC verification, we already have a system in place, where a user has to upload a selfie with a PAN card and a list containing text (Coindcx, current date, and signature). At support, we verify the photo, user details, etc.”
Remarks Function Resists Closing of Banks Accounts
Crypto traders in India are confronting the issue of closing accounts by banks if they are found engaged in crypto-related activities. The banks seek proofs including in the payment 'remarks' box for any crypto relevant keywords like the name of the exchange.
To tackle the issue, Wazirx recently changed its payment remarks function after receiving plenty of requests from its users. “This is the most wanted feature for Wazirx P2P,” the exchange outlined. Further, added that payment remarks are significant for a couple of reasons. First is, it assists the seller in faster confirmation of transactions. The second is, it ensures that the acquirer does not enter crypto-related keywords to get into trouble with their banks.
