FSA Punishes Seven Exchanges
The Financial Services Agency of Japan (FSA) announced on Thursday that it has sentenced seven cyberprocurrency exchanges, ordering two of them to be suspended, in an effort to shore up consumer protection.
Bit Station and FSHO are ordered to "temporarily close" from 8 to 7 April. Both are quasi-operators, meaning they are allowed to operate cyptocurrency exchanges while their registration with the FSA is awaiting review. The agency also asked the two exchangers to submit a work improvement plan on March 22.
In addition, Tech Bureau, GMO Coin, Lemuria Bitcoin Exchange (Bitcrements), Mister Exchange, and Coincheck also received FSA repair orders.
Since the revised payment service action took effect in April last year, a cryptocurrency exchange was requested to register with the FSA. Sixteen cypto exchanger operators have been licensed so far. In addition, sixteen more were allowed to operate the crypto exchange as a quasi-operator. What's more, there are more than 100 companies that want to get into this business and operate their own crypto exchange.
Problems Encountered During Examination
After Coincheck was hacked in January, the FSA began checking all cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. "The inspection targets some of 16 licensed exchange operators and 16 operators that have not been officially registered with the authorities. but While not yet complete, the FSA inspection seems to have found enough problems with customer protection and anti-money laundering actions that the agency is worried about hacking as before.
According to the news agency, the FSA found five unlisted crypto exchange operators are "very problematic," adding that they must "meet agency requirements and complete registration or withdraw its applications."
The FSA says Coincheck has sufficient funds
When Coincheck was hacked in January for a value of 58 billion yen (~ USD50 million) the cryptocurrency market declined significantly.
Following the incident, the FSA issued increased business orders and demanded that the company strengthen the supervision and management of systems related to the NEM hack.
Coincheck promised to pay off some of their missing funds but many have questioned whether the exchangers have enough money to do so. The FSA announced on Thursday that it had verified that Coincheck had enough funds to repay its customers as promised.