Gemini Hires Former Circle Compliance Officer to Oversee European Market

Cryptocurrency trade Gemini has employed former Circle compliance officer Blair Halliday as chief compliance officer and money-laundering reporting officer for the U.Okay. and Europe, the corporate introduced Tuesday.

Halliday will report back to Gemini’s managing director of U.Okay. and Europe, Julian Sawyer, and can work carefully with the agency’s NYC-based chief compliance officer, Noah Perlman, who was previously international head of economic crimes at Morgan Stanley.

The transfer comes as ramped-up rules go into impact with the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5), which requires crypto corporations to display compliance with enhanced know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) procedures.

Halliday’s first challenge shall be making certain that Gemini’s threat administration practices are in place because the U.Okay.’s Monetary Conduct Authority critiques its e-money license software, Sawyer mentioned.

“In the meanwhile, our clients within the U.Okay. need to ship cash to the U.S. as a wire switch,” Sawyer mentioned. “An e-money license would permit them to deposit native forex with out overseas trade [costs].” 

At Circle, Halliday was chief compliance officer for Europe, the Center East and Africa. Earlier than that, he was government director of economic crime and compliance at fintech startup CashFlows and chief compliance officer on the Worldwide Foreign money Change. He started his profession on the Royal Financial institution of Scotland, the place he spent 14 years in monetary crime–associated roles.