Japan’s Financial Services Agency Grants Full License To Hacked Crypto Exchange Coincheck

News, Regulation | January 14, 2019 By:

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) has approved the registration of Coincheck as a cryptocurrency exchange.

Last week, the Registration Review Process of Virtual Currency Exchange confirmed that Coincheck officially fulfilled the registrations requirements of the FSA. Coincheck, which was hacked in January 2018, has become the 17th fully-registered crypto exchange in Japan.

“Coincheck Inc … announced today that it has registered with the Kanto Financial Bureau as a cryptocurrency exchange agency in accordance with the Payment Service Act, effective January 11, 2019,” said Monex Group, which bought Coincheck for a nominal $33.5 million in April 2018.

After it was hacked last year, Coincheck received two business improvement orders from the FSA, with a particular focus on improving its customer protection and anti-money-laundering (AML) measures. Under the management of the Monex Group, the exchange has worked on enhancing technical safety, and gradually resumed the services in which the technical safety had been confirmed.

“Complying with the “Registration Process for Cryptocurrency Exchange” which was publicized on October 24, 2018 by the Financial Services Agency of Japan, Coincheck has given a full explanation to the agency on the firm’s business descriptions, plans, and basic philosophy on risk management, as well as on the development of the firm’s governance with concrete internal controls and customer protection in mind,” Monex said.

In addition to the Coincheck approval, the FSA said that there are 21 crypto companies taking part in the first part of the review process, and seven are already in the decision phase.