The well-regarded Ethereum wallet platform MyEtherWallet (MEW) has teamed up with Swiss crypto brokerage Bity to offer crypto-to-fiat transfers of up to approximately 5,000 Swiss Francs – with no personal Know-Your-Customer/Anti-Money-Laundering (KYC/AML) checks required, MEW have said on their Medium blog.
Bity are fully regulated regulated in Switzerland, and offer one-way transfers into CHF and Euro bank accounts. Transfers are not completely opaque, however, with users having to submit bank account information and a physical address associated with it – which they must trust MEW to and Bity to not hold after the transaction.
Besides their new agreement with MEW, Bity also offer their own exchange service and interface, as well as several Bitcoin ATMs spread around Switzerland.
The new exit-to-fiat option on MEW joins the platform’s already established purchasing options, which were implemented mid-2018 in partnership with Simplex.
MEW, long a fixture of the Ethereum space, abruptly split into two separate projects last year when a MEW team member broke off to form the similar MyCrypto wallet – confusingly hijacking MEW’s twitter account in the process.
Despite remaining similar products, one distinguishing feature of the MyCrypto wallet is the availability of a standalone, downloadable client.
5MLD
Bity are regulated in Switzerland, which is not a EU member state and thus will not directly fall within the new Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive or “5MLD.” But since they will offer transfers to EU bank accounts, they will still be indrectly affected by the new rules. One of the 5MLD’s main objectives is to more closely monitor financial transactions to and within EU banks for terrorist financing.
However, the new regime for the first time also enacts EU-wide rules regarding “virtual currencies,” and subjects both cryptoasset exchanges and custodial wallets to the same EU KYC/AML requirements as other EU financial entities. Ireland and the Netherlands have already made moves towards compliance with the new rules, with the rest of the bloc required to comply by early 2020.
