OKX fined $1.2M by Malta for breaching money laundering rules

What to know

• OKX's Europe company was fined 1.05 million euros ($1.2 million) by Malta's financial watchdog for breaching the country's money laundering rules.

• The company said it's committed to meeting global standards.

OKX's Europe company—also known as OKCoin Europe, a subsidiary of crypto exchange OKX—was fined 1.05 million euros ($1.2 million) by Malta's financial watchdog on Thursday for breaching the country's money laundering rules.

The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) said the company failed to assess the money laundering and financing of terrorism risks emanating from the products it offers and had violated parts of the country's Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism Regulations.

"Regulatory compliance is a top priority for OKX, and we remain committed to meeting and exceeding global regulatory standards," OKX said in a statement.

The company also said it had addressed gaps identified in its compliance framework following the authority's 2023 review. In the new notice, FIAU also commended the company on making significant improvements over the past 18 months.

OKX secured the coveted Markets in Crypto Assets license (MiCA) from Malta earlier this year, which will enable it to offer crypto services across the European Union.

"The company was expected to assess the nature of risks prevalent in the services it was offering," the authority said in its notice.

FIAU said the exchange should assess risks tied to the use of stablecoins, mixers that obscure the origins of transactions, privacy coins, tokens designed for anonymity, and tokens on decentralized exchanges.

OKX recently temporarily suspended its decentralized exchange aggregator following reports that European regulators had been looking at how it had been used to launder funds from a recent hack of the Bybit exchange.

Bloomberg first reported the story.