e-gold Blog

e-gold Update: Throughput Limits

Since my last post of October 19 announcing deployment of e-gold's document upload interface, numerous e-gold Users have uploaded the required documents for verifying identity and residential address. So far, however, many of you will have noticed that your accounts continue to display the message:

"Account Status: Spend Access Restricted"

and that no Spend transactions have occurred system-wide during the entire interval since that software release. There are several reasons for the delay, and each of them in turn introduces new complexities I will elaborate. The good news, jumping ahead, is that we anticipate re-opening for Spend activity, on a limited basis, within a day or two.

State licensing requirements
e-gold has approached every US state, and the District of Columbia, with either a license application or a letter requesting a determination as to whether a license is required in that state. Several states have indicated that e-gold should prevent customers from their state from using the system until a determination is made or a license granted. This meant that we had to implement programmatic modifications to selectively restrict access to Spend capabilities on a state-by-state basis. That part is done and deployed but the additional development task introduced some delay.

AML controls based on geographic (country) risk
In the past, there was a geographic pattern to criminal abuse of the e-gold system with Users from particular countries showing a much higher statistical tendency to engage in such activities. We have decided to limit this geographic risk by the temporary, and somewhat crude, means of country-specific throughput limits. Throughput limits themselves are not crude, and in fact will evolve into a cornerstone of the more refined Customer Due Diligence and risk-based Transaction Monitoring capabilities e-gold is urgently continuing to develop. The crudeness lies in their application, again temporarily, to entire countries. You will note that several countries have a zero throughput limit, that is, a complete prohibition of receiving or making Spends. We regret this and are working on the system enhancements that will enable us to reinstate usage privileges. Meanwhile, e-gold Users from these locations are encouraged to go ahead and provision their accounts, and watch for the system improvements that will support restoration of service.

Non-documentary verification
US laws and regulations governing financial institutions call for Customer Identification Programs that may involve documentary and/or non-documentary means of verification. "Documentary" means, well, looking at documents. Document upload and review is now a universal requirement for e-gold Users.

"Non-documentary" means checking individual identifiers for internal consistency - name, address, date of birth, government issued identifying number - against an external database. Initially, we were planning to use a vendor for this element of identity verification for US Users of e-gold. The vendors that provide such verification services obviously must themselves perform rigorous due diligence on their customers. Currently, e-gold is still working through that process with the vendor it hopes to use. If we had this capability for US Users of e-gold we could afford them a higher level of transaction privileges, i.e., a higher monthly throughput limit. Until we have that in place though, we are limiting US Users to the same throughput limits as Users from other OECD countries.

We plan to also implement Postal Validation as soon as possible. That enhancement to Customer Identification will support higher throughput limits for postally validated accounts, hopefully including accounts in the higher risk countries.

Disruption of exchange
A yet unsolved problem is resumption of liquid and competitive exchange markets. I will be posting additional thoughts on that topic shortly. To briefly preview, e-gold will be promulgating requirements for the regulation of exchange services, which will include a combination of government licensing requirements plus e-gold's own Enhanced Due Diligence for exchangers.

e-gold update: Customer Identification, Identity Document Review

e-gold Ltd. is pleased to announce the deployment of the next phase of its enhanced Customer Identification Program (CIP). All e-gold account Users are now required to submit documentation of identity and residential address. Each User must provide a Government issued photo ID and a second document, such as a utility bill, showing the address they supplied as part of their Point of Contact information. Images of the required documents can be electronically uploaded to the e-gold website. Document review will occur as rapidly as possible and we continue to ask for the patience of our customers, especially initially, as Customer Service staff works through the avalanche of data from existing e-gold Users.

As part of the e-gold Account provisioning process, e-gold now uniformly obtains the four essential identifying elements for a compliant CIP: the User's name, address, date-of-birth, and a government-issued personal identifying number such as a tax ID number. This latest system enhancement supports e-gold's ability to verify this data by either (or both) documentary or(/and) non-documentary means, and represents a significant milestone toward e-gold attaining full compliance with all applicable U.S. laws and regulatory requirements. Of equal significance, e-gold's robust CIP and impending Due Diligence procedures will aid in making e-gold a more secure environment for global eCommerce.

As previously noted, Users located in selected jurisdictions may also experience additional service disruptions as licensing issues are sorted out or, in the case of countries identified as posing an increased risk of online criminal activity, until additional systematic risk-based Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) measures can be implemented.

e-gold Ltd. remains highly committed to offering a cost effective Internet payment system affording instantaneous settlement, free of chargeback risk, to customers around the world. We continue to be confident that a regulated e-gold rebuilt to a more systematic specification will be less hospitable to criminals, and more attractive to mainstream business use without being less accessible to those disregarded by legacy payment systems.

e-gold update: U.S. State Licensing and Customer Identification

e-gold Ltd. is continuing to develop and deploy urgently needed system enhancements in order to achieve compliance with applicable U.S. laws and regulatory requirements. e-gold has registered with FinCEN as a money transmitting business, and is working with various U.S. state authorities to obtain licensing as a money transmitting business where required.

Licensing requirements vary from state to state and country by country. As e-gold completes this process, it is possible that Users residing in some jurisdictions may experience service disruption. We ask for your patience, and assure you we are working diligently to complete this sometimes complex process of licensing as soon as possible.

Another major focus of our efforts is a robust Customer Identification Program (CIP).

As a step towards improved customer identification, e-gold is requiring all Users to update their Point of Contact Information to a consistent format, in addition to providing their Date-of-Birth and Personal Tax Identification number. This improved quality of identifying information is being obtained in preparation for the next-stage CIP, which will include the collection of electronic images of documents to verify identity and residential address. This enhanced capability, supporting both documentary and non-documentary mechanisms of identity verification, will be implemented in the very near future.

e-gold Ltd. remains highly committed to offering a cost effective Internet payment system affording instantaneous settlement, free of chargeback risk, to customers around the world. We continue to be confident that a regulated e-gold rebuilt to a more systematic specification will be less hospitable to criminals, and more attractive to mainstream business use without being less accessible to those disregarded by legacy payment systems.

Enhancements to e-gold's Customer Identification Program

As I noted in my post to this blog on July 21, 2008, e-gold Ltd. is working diligently to reach compliance with U.S. law and regulation as quickly as possible. As a major step towards implementing a more robust Customer Identification Program, effective September 18, 2008, e-gold account Users are now required to include a Personal Tax Identification Number (PTID) for the point of contact for any e-gold account they control in order to make outgoing Spends.  For United States residents the PTID must be either their Social Security Number (SSN) or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).  Residents of other countries will need to provide their tax identifying number applicable to their country.

e-gold Ltd. remains highly committed to continuing to offer a cost effective Internet payment system making instantaneous settlement, free of chargeback risk, available to customers around the world.  We continue to be confident that a regulated e-gold rebuilt to a more systematic specification will be less hospitable to criminals, and more attractive to mainstream business use without being less accessible to those disregarded by legacy payment systems.

e-gold® Founder Denies Criminal Charges

On April 24, 2007, a Federal Grand Jury handed down an indictment charging e-gold Ltd., Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc., and the Directors of both companies with money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitter business, and conspiracies to commit both offenses.

Dr. Douglas Jackson, Chairman and Founder of e-gold, speaking on behalf of his fellow Directors and both companies vigorously denies the charges ..

Continue reading full text of press release ..

e-gold® Blocks Account Logins From Exploited Computers

e-gold Users now have additional protection against "phishing attacks", thanks to a ground breaking upgrade to its Account Sentinel™ (a.k.a. AccSent(tm)) arsenal of account access security features.

Using DNS blacklist data published by well known third parties, AccSent now blocks account access from IPs identified as open proxies, insecure web servers, or otherwise open to exploitation by criminals. For the sake of brevity, e-gold refers to such blacklisted IPs as "blips".

As always, the AccSent advantage is that e-gold Users need not take any action - or even understand what an IP address, an open proxy, or a phishing attack is - to immediately benefit from this innovative new feature. However, as powerful as AccSent is, the best protection against phishing and other criminal attacks is user education. For this reason e-gold urges its Users to carefully read and practice the Security Recommendations published on the e-gold.com website.

e-gold® Empowers Online Gambling Sites to Refuse Payments from US Persons

On October 12, 2006, the Safe Ports Act was signed into law in the United States. As a result of the Safe Ports Act and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 contained in the Safe Ports Act, the facilitation of many forms of Internet gambling by persons located in the United States has become a proscribed activity. With the objective of preventing the use of e-gold by United States persons for unlawful online gambling, e-gold has deployed a feature whereby any e-gold account holder may configure their e-gold account(s) to block incoming e-gold Spends from accounts controlled by Users residing inside the United States or who are accessing the Internet from within the United States. Online gambling businesses using e-gold are now required to enable this new account attribute.

e-gold® Milestone: Ten Years Online

"While other payment systems have come and gone losing millions of investment dollars e gold has continued to successfully serve its customers. It has flourished due to its strong fundamental principles of freedom from default and finality of settlement. e-gold has always held true to meeting its User obligations. When merchants are paid they stay paid, and consumers can make payments without compromising their personal information online."

Read the full press release here.

e-gold® Founding Member of Financial Coalition to Eradicate Commercial Child Pornography

Eighteen of the world’s most prominent financial institutions and Internet industry leaders have joined with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and its sister organization, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) in the fight against Internet child pornography. The goal is to eradicate commercial child pornography by 2008.

Press release available here.

e-gold® Empowers Users to Refuse Payments from "Blocked Accounts"

e-gold is pleased to deploy a feature empowering e-gold Users to refuse payments from "Blocked accounts".  "Blocked accounts" are blocked from receiving payments due to insufficient identifying information and/or e-gold invoking its Right of Association.  The new feature enables Users to reduce the possibility of receiving payments from potentially unscrupulous counterparties.  The default setting (User may view/change via "Account Info") refuses payment from Blocked accounts.