Japan's FSA Expands Crypto Team to Handle Trading License Review

Japan's financial market watchdog is looking to expand its team focused on crypto-related activities next year to better handle the growing interest among Japanese companies for a cryptocurrency exchange license.

Kiyotaka Sasaki, vice commissioner for policy coordination at the FSA, said the authority currently has about 30 people in charge of the overall supervision over crypto-related activities, including license registration review.

Sasaki added the FSA is planning to add 12 more people for the fiscal year of 2019 to better respond to the growth of the cryptocurrency exchange industry, as reported by Reuters.

According to a document released after the meeting, the FSA has been reviewing 16 cases while more than 160 firms including public companies are now planning to submit applications for a crypto exchange license.

The FSA said 12 of the 16 companies reviewed withdrew their applications as instructed by the regulator while it rejected one exchange.

Data compiled by the FSA further indicated the government agency is not the only entity that is dealing with a shortage of staff on cryptocurrency.

"Many exchanges are managing large amounts of user assets with a small team," the FSA said in a summary.

Data shows while the total assets Japanese crypto exchanges hold for investors have increased by 553 percent over the past year, more than 75 percent of them have a team that is smaller than 20 people.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, the FSA hosted its first crypto study group meeting in April following the Coincheck hack in January.

At the time, the authority said the crypto trading volume in Japan has grown significantly over the years, with $97 billion on just bitcoin in 2017.