VASPs in Taiwan Forms an Association for Self-Regulation
The development of self-regulatory standards for the digital asset industry in Taiwan is coming up as a group of crypto firms have reportedly formed an association in the country. The XREX exchange said twenty-four cryptocurrency companies are now founding members of Taiwan Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) Association.
The chair and vice-chair of the new association is Titan Cheng of BitoPro and Winston Hsiao of XREX respectively. Titan Cheng is the founder and CEO of BitoPro, while Winston Hsiao is the chief revenue officer of XREX.
The focus of the association is on “promoting and facilitating rigorous and fair regulations that help grow the blockchain finance industry globally.” According to XREX, the association will cooperate with the authorities to jointly fight fraud as well as other criminal activities.
“The industry will also contribute technology, industrial knowledge and infrastructure to jointly establish an industrial joint defense platform and design international transfer rules that meet Taiwan’s needs (Travel Rule) standards, networks and alliances, to create currency flow scanning and tracking technology that is consistent with Taiwan’s money laundering and fraud patterns,” said XREX.
This comes after the country’s Justice Ministry proposed an amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations for VASPs. As stipulated in the proposed amendments, entities who refuse to comply could face a maximum of two years imprisonment or fines of a maximum of $1.5 million. Likewise, plans to come up with new digital asset regulations were revealed by the country’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).
According to a director of FSC Hsiho Huang during the announcement of the new association on June 13, “the establishment of the association will bring more cooperation and consensus to the industry, promote compliance, standardization and healthy development of the industry, ensure the safety, transparency and stability of the industry, and enhance the protection of consumer rights”.