Business Improvement Plans Submitted By Crypto Exchanges In Japan

Out of Japan’s 16 government-approved cryptocurrency exchanges, 6 have submitted their business improvement plans to Japan’s highest financial regulator: the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Business improvement orders were issued on June 22 to Bitflyer, Bitpoint Japan,  Bitbank, Btc Box Quoine and  Tech Bureau.

Each of these six companies that they have submitted a written business improvement plan to the agency on Monday, July 23. Bitflyer was ordered to improve in ten areas, Btc Box nine, Bitbank eight, and Quoine seven.  Bitpoint and Tech Bureau were ordered to improve in six areas. The operator of the Zaif exchange, Tech Bureau, was receiving its second order on June 22.

Bitflyer was the only company to receive an order for a “drastic review of [its] management system.” Bitflyer, Quoine and Btc Box, all received an order to construct “a management system related to the exclusion of antisocial forces.”

“Building a legal compliance system,” “Establish a risk management system for money laundering and terrorist financing,” “Construction of a separation control system for user property,” “Establishment of a control system related to user protection measures,” and “Construction of the risk management system in accordance with the new handling or the like of the virtual currency,” are improvement items that were included in the FSA order, on which the exchanges are supposed to work on.

Bitpoint has launched a couple of new services since it has received a business improvement order. On June 29, Bitpoint Advance, a trading tool, was launched. The exchange said it is “designed to quickly deal with price information such as charts and board information…on one screen, without changing the screen.” The tool supports “both in-kind trading and leveraged transactions.”

Bitpoint upgraded its crypto payment system for merchants called Bitpointpay, earlier this month. It now supports BCH, BTC, and ETH. The company said that: “We have upgraded the version to correspond to bitcoin cash (BCH) with the aim of expanding the means of settlement for users … As a result of this upgrade, customers (payers) can choose to pay franchisees from the three types of virtual currencies.”

Bitbank apologized to its customer on Monday, then later wrote that they have “fundamentally reviewed the internal control system and management system.” According to the company, the measures were made “in order to ensure proper and reliable operation of the business towards customers’ recovery of trust.”

Bitbank will “continue to review the management strategy and others.” So as to avoid problems in the future.

A career site was launched last week by the company, to “strengthen its recruitment.” There are a number of vacancies to be filled, currently listed on the site. Among other, you have positions in engineering, design, marketing, PR, HR, internal audit, and compliance.

“We are currently growing rapidly, but we are looking for someone who can work together to grow more,” the company said.

Zaif wrote, “Support will [also] be terminated on Tuesday, October 16, 2018.” This was after the release of the announcement last week, in which they revealed that its existing iOS and Android smartphone applications will be terminated on October 15.

The company said that this won’t affect deposits, withdrawals, and trading on the exchange platform. It clarified that “Currently we are developing dedicated new applications. We will make every effort to provide you with better service with a new official application.”

Bitflyer, the largest exchange in terms of trading volume in Japan, stated in a notice on Monday that it “strictly observes the relevant laws and regulations and further strengthens the management system throughout the company.” “We will make every effort to prevent recurrence and restore customer’s trust,” as emphasized by the company.

Immediately after receiving the improvement order on June 22, the exchange stopped accepting new customers. The website was still showing at the time of this writing the following note: “We are currently pausing the account creation by new customers voluntarily in order to do our utmost to build a proper service management system and to improve our suggestions.”