InterLink lays out payment compliance

InterLink is trying to sell a hard thing to banks and payment firms: crypto rails that touch real money without tripping every regulator on the way. Its latest pitch is a compliance stack built around three rulebooks that already shape how licensed crypto businesses move funds and customer data. (interlinklabs.ai, sfc.hk) The first rulebook is Hong Kong’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance, which is the law that sets customer checks, recordkeeping, and suspicious-transaction controls for covered firms. In Hong Kong, centralized virtual-asset trading platforms serving the city or marketing to its investors fall under that ordinance and need a license. (sfc.hk, elegislation.gov.hk) The second rulebook is the Securities and Futures Commission regime for virtual-asset service providers, which is the licensing system that sits on top of that law. The Securities and Futures Commission says those operators are regulated under both the Securities and Futures Ordinance and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance, so “compliance” here means more than just checking names against a list. (sfc.hk) The third rulebook is the Financial Action Task Force Travel Rule, which works like the information printed on a bank wire. When one crypto business sends funds to another, the rule requires originator and beneficiary information to travel with the transfer so the receiving side knows who sent what to whom. (sfc.hk, leisystem.com) That sounds dry until you look at what InterLink says it wants to build. Its own materials describe payment products, a live Visa card test with HPX LLC, custody-style infrastructure, and “real-world” spending links that move digital assets into ordinary payment flows. (interlinklabs.ai, interlinklabs.ai) The problem with that business is not sending tokens from one wallet to another. The problem is proving to a partner bank, card program, or licensed exchange that the people and entities in the flow have been checked, the transfers can be traced, and the records will survive an audit. (sfc.hk, trmlabs.com) InterLink’s website already leans heavily on identity language, including “Proof of Personhood” and tools for identity verification and authentication. A compliance framework built around anti-money-laundering checks and Travel Rule data fits that strategy because identity is the raw material those rules keep asking for. (interlinklabs.ai) So this announcement is less about a new consumer product than about clearing a path for institutional distribution. If InterLink wants custody providers, payment processors, and regulated-asset firms to plug into its backend, it has to show that compliance is built into the plumbing rather than bolted on after launch. (interlinklabs.ai, sfc.hk) Hong Kong is a deliberate place to make that case. The city’s virtual-asset platform regime took effect on June 1, 2023, and the Securities and Futures Commission has spent the past two years turning crypto supervision into a licensing question instead of a gray-area experiment. (sfc.hk, sfc.hk) That is why the three pillars sit together. One pillar covers the law, one covers the local license, and one covers the cross-border data that has to move with a payment when another regulated firm is on the other end. (elegislation.gov.hk, sfc.hk, sfc.hk) If InterLink can make that package credible, it gets closer to being infrastructure instead of just another token network. If it cannot, every bank integration, card program, and regulated-asset partnership turns into the same meeting about customer files, source of funds, and missing sender data. (interlinklabs.ai, sfc.hk)