Japanese Exchanges Vow to Self-regulate, Seek Gov’t Approval

The Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Industry Association, a consortium of all 16 of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange platforms that have obtained operating licenses from the regulatory Financial Services Agency, has held its first official meeting.

The body was formed in March this year, but yesterday met for the first time to elect its leadership structure and outline its goals. Yasunori Okuyama, president of Money Partners, was appointed the association’s chairman, and told reporters, “We will first seek to agree upon a code of self-regulatory policies. Once we have done that, we will look to gain official recognition as a self-regulatory organization.”

The body also said that it will seek to establish a code of conduct for exchanges, issue official statistics and audit its members. The members also spoke of the need to introduce tighter security measures, behave as “responsible financial institutions” and work toward shared goals, seeking to share technological advances.

Okuyama, who is also the head of the Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association, added, “It will be hard to obtain government recognition within the space of a month or two, but I hope we can get the process done as soon as possible.”