Thailand's banks follow BOT call against digital money transactions

BANGKOK, February 14 (TNA) - The Thai Bankers Association (TBA) has heeded and followed a call by the Bank of Thailand (BOT) on not offering or involving in all forms of cryptocurrency transactions as of February 13. TBA Chairman Pridi Daochai told journalists of the stance in a quick response to the BOT's call for such the cooperation by sending a letter to all financial institutes in Thailand. Pridi said financial institutes which are TBA members have been informed to block all digital money transactions in which their clients are receivers. BOT Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob earlier told reporters that in the letter, BOT has asked financial institutes in the country not to offer or support cryptocurrency transactions in all forms, including selling or buying or investing in the digital money for either their own benefits or their clients' benefits, launching any digital money exchange service, opening any platform for digital money transactions for their clients, allowing the use of credit cards for buying digital money by their clients and offering any consulting service for their clients for digital money investment or exchanges. Besides, BOT has urged all financial institutes in the country to be more careful in operating their deposit and lending services to ensure that cryptocurrency transaction is never involved, by strictly adhering to the "Know Your Customer (KYC) and the Customer Due Diligence (CDD) principles. KYC is a process to identify and verify the identity of business clients, while CDD comprises information of clients that enables businesses to assess a range of risks of their clients. The BOT governor also confirmed that all types of cryptocurrency are not legal of medium of exchange in Thailand and there has been no official agency to oversee and take care of the use of the digital money in the country. The BOT governor, again, warned that the value of the cryptocurrency has been highly fluctuating due to speculations and there has been no reliable reference and guarantee for cryptocurrency issuing sources and its real value. the TBA chairman noted, meanwhile, that TBA members have also been informed not to allow the use of credit cards for the issuance of an initial coin offering (ICO) of JFin, a free software derivatives trade processing application written in Java and issued under the GNU General Public License of J Ventures Co., Ltd, which is a subsidiary of China-based Jay Mart Public Company Limited, unless the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gives the green light for the ICO issuance of JFin in the future. (TNA)