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DigiFinex joins CoolBitX’s Sygna Alliance to Comply With FATF Travel Rule and Singapore Crypto Regulations

Staff Writer
Staff Writer
January 31st, 2023

DigiFinex, a digital assets trading platform, has joined the Sygna Alliance as the 25th member and completed the integration of CoolBitX’s market-ready compliance solution, Sygna Bridge. The Sygna Alliance consists of a consortium of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) across the APAC region, most of which have commenced internal testing and implementation of the Sygna Bridge solution. 

Sygna Bridge is an interoperable, user-friendly, and secure API for compliant data sharing that enables VASPs like the Singapore-based DigiFinex to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule and meet the licensing requirements of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) PSN02—which regulates VASPs for the prevention of money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. 

Singapore’s well-developed regulatory framework for virtual assets has placed the nation as a leading hub for cryptocurrency investment and activity,” CoolBitX founder and CEO Michael Ou said. “As such, the industry has benefited from proactively keeping up with and even exceeding the pace of regulatory compliance with MAS requirements, setting the world standard in dealing with money laundering concerns in the digital realm. We are ecstatic that Digifinex, one of the world’s leading exchanges, has chosen Sygna Bridge as its compliance solution to meet the MAS’ guidance, and are thrilled to have them onboard the Sygna Alliance.” 

In October 2020, Singapore crypto trade association ACCESS announced Sygna Bridge had become the first solution to be evaluated based on its independent assessment framework for Singapore’s Payment Services Act (PSA)—demonstrating Sygna Bridge’s ability to help VASPs in Singapore meet local regulations while maintaining operational standards. 

It made perfect sense to select a solution that was market-ready and could serve our current and future compliance needs,” DigiFinex CXO Kiana Shek said. “I’m excited to work with Sygna Bridge, and am confident in Sygna Bridge’s ability to streamline the data transfer process for DigiFinex and uphold the high standards for user experience.”

The latest Sygna Bridge version supports the InterVASP Messaging Standard (IVMS101), a unifying messaging standard advocated by The Joint Working Group—an industry body formed by Chamber of Digital Commerce, Global Digital Finance, and the International Digital Asset Exchange Association. This comes after months of technical improvements and rigorous testing with VASP partners in Singapore, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In addition, Sygna Bridge also successfully demonstrated its compatibility with the leading information sharing platform Travel Rule Information Sharing Alliance (TRISA) in September 2020, through a proof-of-concept (PoC) that enables message interoperability and mutual VASP authentication.