Regulatory insanity for fiat on-ramping to Kraken

[WorldCitizen99]

Anyone with a Kraken crypto account knows that the fiat on and off ramp for USD includes only 2 options - having an account at Etana Custody or at Bank Frick.
I wired 300K to my crypto account via Etana and got the following email a week later:

Thank you for being an Etana customer. As a regulated company, we are required to review our customers' activity periodically. As such, please provide details of the following:

1. Please confirm your current annual income (USD).
2. Please confirm your current net worth (USD). Please provide details of the assets/calculations you are using to determine your net worth.
3. Describe the source of funds/wealth for your transactions.
4. If employed, validate your current employment status including the name of your employer and your position (LinkedIn or websites confirming your position can be accepted).
5. Provide a bank statement from your approved funding account (XYZ bank account ending in **** and **** as well as for ABC bank int'l account ending in **** and **** ) in PDF format for the last 90 days.
6. Indicate your intended activity going forward. The number of transactions you intend to make per month, and the total dollar amount.
7. Provide a screenshot/statement of your current holdings with the exchange(s) related to your linked account.
8. Please provide a ledger from your exchange showing your activity for the last 90 days.

Until I provide the info, my account is on frozen.

I sold my condo 18 months ago and got much more than 300K. Sending them the paper trail from the proceeds of the sale to the 300K is not enough. They need to know my entire financial status.
Is this bc Etana is a US company? or bc the transaction was in USD? Or bc it is crypto? Or bc Kraken is a US company?

I want to say To hell with them....I am actively looking for an alternative to off ramp any profits I make. I can convert to CAD and withdraw by EFT (electronic funds transfer).

Does anyone have experience with Bank Frick?
I wrote to them a year ago: for a private banking setup, they told me one needs 500K-1M Euros (in either crypto or cash) but of course they wil hold custody of your crypto and their choice of cryptos (other than BTC and ETH) are literally the worst cryptos imaginable - all overvalued projects with no clear use-case or future. I never bothered to check their custody fees. I would never keep my money in 95% of the s*itcoins they restrict their clients to. But they are in a good jurisdiction (Liechtenstein) and one could hold just cash and some BTC/ETH (which I believe will appreciate over the next few years).

Should I go through the hassle of proving my entire net worth to the regulators or tell Etana to go pleasure themselves with a cactus and a piece of sandpaper.....

 

[void]

you have chosen the wrong option from those two... deposit of usd to kraken through bank frick is totally frictionless (putting aside ridiculous fees I'm not used to anymore thanks to SEPA), I can only recommend

 

[WorldCitizen99]

you have chosen the wrong option from those two... deposit of usd to kraken through bank frick is totally frictionless (putting aside ridiculous fees I'm not used to anymore thanks to SEPA), I can only recommend

It seems like Frick is quite flexible if you have a crypto business. But I dont have a company and so I would have to keep 500K there under private banking - and I would only keep it in BTC/ETH and a small amount of cash. And there are private banking fees. So, is the setup to have Frick hold your BTC/ETH and cash for you (to meet the 500k requirement) and invest everything over and above that into Kraken? Or is there another way?

 

[Meta]

Hi, you don't need a bank account at Bank Frick. Kraken uses Frick as one of their fiat processors (other being Etana), but it does not have anything to do with you. You don't open account at Frick, don't communicate with them etc. You just make a SWIFT transfer to an account at Frick.

 

[void]

Hi, you don't need a bank account at Bank Frick. Kraken uses Frick as one of their fiat processors (other being Etana), but it does not have anything to do with you. You don't open account at Frick, don't communicate with them etc. You just make a SWIFT transfer to an account at Frick.

exactly, it's way different story than Etana

 

[WorldCitizen99]

>You just make a SWIFT transfer to an account at Frick.
So you can just use it as an intermediary bank? I never realized that! Signing up for Etana was a pain! Thanks - I will look into this more. WIll they have the same compliance requirements as the ones I listed above from Etana?

 

[Meta]

When you choose it from the list you will see deposit instructions: please send money to account 12345 in the name of Abc Ltd at Bank Frick (BFRILI22XXX) with unique reference message. Kraken asked me for information/KYC once, but it was nothing like what you listed above. I guess condo sale contract should be enough. I never heard anything from Bank Frick and pretty sure they don't do own compliance in 99% cases because Kraken and your bank are supposed to do that, not Frick.

 

[caligula1778]

Anyone with a Kraken crypto account knows that the fiat on and off ramp for USD includes only 2 options - having an account at Etana Custody or at Bank Frick.
I wired 300K to my crypto account via Etana and got the following email a week later:

Thank you for being an Etana customer. As a regulated company, we are required to review our customers' activity periodically. As such, please provide details of the following:

1. Please confirm your current annual income (USD).
2. Please confirm your current net worth (USD). Please provide details of the assets/calculations you are using to determine your net worth.
3. Describe the source of funds/wealth for your transactions.
4. If employed, validate your current employment status including the name of your employer and your position (LinkedIn or websites confirming your position can be accepted).
5. Provide a bank statement from your approved funding account (XYZ bank account ending in **** and **** as well as for ABC bank int'l account ending in **** and **** ) in PDF format for the last 90 days.
6. Indicate your intended activity going forward. The number of transactions you intend to make per month, and the total dollar amount.
7. Provide a screenshot/statement of your current holdings with the exchange(s) related to your linked account.
8. Please provide a ledger from your exchange showing your activity for the last 90 days.

Until I provide the info, my account is on frozen.

I sold my condo 18 months ago and got much more than 300K. Sending them the paper trail from the proceeds of the sale to the 300K is not enough. They need to know my entire financial status.
Is this bc Etana is a US company? or bc the transaction was in USD? Or bc it is crypto? Or bc Kraken is a US company?

I want to say To hell with them....I am actively looking for an alternative to off ramp any profits I make. I can convert to CAD and withdraw by EFT (electronic funds transfer).

Does anyone have experience with Bank Frick?
I wrote to them a year ago: for a private banking setup, they told me one needs 500K-1M Euros (in either crypto or cash) but of course they wil hold custody of your crypto and their choice of cryptos (other than BTC and ETH) are literally the worst cryptos imaginable - all overvalued projects with no clear use-case or future. I never bothered to check their custody fees. I would never keep my money in 95% of the s*itcoins they restrict their clients to. But they are in a good jurisdiction (Liechtenstein) and one could hold just cash and some BTC/ETH (which I believe will appreciate over the next few years).

Should I go through the hassle of proving my entire net worth to the regulators or tell Etana to go pleasure themselves with a cactus and a piece of sandpaper.....

I just got the same email 2 days ago and they have stopped responding, did this get resolved for you? Are they bankrupt? I fear I will lose all my money there. They DISABLED my account!!! How can you just do that, you’re a custodian, I trade on Kraken… is this a scam???

 

[wellington]

I just got the same email 2 days ago and they have stopped responding, did this get resolved for you? Are they bankrupt? I fear I will lose all my money there. They DISABLED my account!!! How can you just do that, you’re a custodian, I trade on Kraken… is this a scam???

Account disabling reads more like money laundering or LE request.