In an interview with Reuters, Monex Group CEO Oki Matsumoto reportedly suggested that Japan should exercise stricter regulatory authority over the nation’s digital currency exchanges. He compared the exchange services to those provided by banking institutions and said that a move toward tighter regulation is just “common sense.”
“Japan’s exchanges do both matching and custodial services - they’re close to a bank. To someone in the financial industry like myself, it’s common sense that regulations will get stricter.”
Earlier this week, Monex had successfully finished its purchase of beleaguered digital currency exchange Coincheck, which had lost more than half a billion dollars in digital currency earlier this year. Monex acquired the exchange for 3.6 billion yen.
The Monex CEO’s reference to banking regulations was a clear nod to the way in which his company is required to separate its customers’ assets from its own. Japan’s 32 exchanges are subject to 2017 rules that require them to maintain that same level of fund separation as well. As Reuters notes, however, “the practice has not been clearly defined.”
