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By Kao Shih-ching / Staff reporter
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Cryptocurrency exchange MaiCoin Ltd (現代財富科技) has submitted an anti-money laundering compliance statement to the Financial Supervisory Commission after the regulator last week required all eight cryptocurrency trading platforms in Taiwan to submit compliance statements by the end of next month.
MaiCoin is the first local exchange to have sent the compliance document to the commission. Other exchanges must file before the deadline or face a fine of between NT$500,000 and NT$10 million (US$17,943 and US$358,860), the commission said yesterday.
The government has imposed specific regulations on local cryptocurrency exchanges to prevent them from being used by money launderers, signaling that the government has attached more importance to the cryptocurrency business, MaiCoin CEO Alex Liu (劉世偉) said in a statement yesterday.
Photo courtesy of MaiCoin Ltd
A healthy ecosystem of cryptocurrency would allow exchanges to provide diverse and innovative services for consumers and to create a safe, convenient trading environment, Liu said.
MaiCoin, Taiwan’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said the number of registered accounts had surpassed 650,000 as of the end of last month, accounting for more than 60 percent of combined accounts of all cryptocurrency exchanges.
The company has since 2018 operated a division that focuses on risk control and money laundering activities. The division also helps communicate with authorities and inspects the exchange’s internal controls against money laundering, together with Deloitte & Touche Taiwan (勤業眾信聯合會計師事務所) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan (資誠聯合會計師事務所), it said.
The demand for compliance documents represents the commission’s latest effort to regulate cryptocurrency businesses after the regulator on July 1 imposed new anti-money laundering regulations that require trading platforms to report transactions valued at more than NT$500,000.
Some cryptocurrency exchanges have reportedly decided to halt their operations due to the new regulations and would not file compliance statements to the commission, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported.
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