Thailand's SEC to regulate cryptocurrency businesses

BANGKOK, February 14 (TNA) - The Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says that it is working out regulations for cryptocurrency businesses in the country, as assigned by the Ministry of Finance. SEC Deputy Secretary-General Tipsuda Thavaramara told journalists on February 13 that SEC expects to complete tailoring the new regulations on digital money businesses within one month, but they will have no retroactive effect. "Both the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) have agreed that there should be new regulations on brokerage and digital money businesses in the country and SEC has been then assigned by the Ministry of Finance to work out the new regulations", Tipsuda explained. Tipsuda noted that SEC is looking into what Thai laws should be appropriately applied for the new regulations of brokerage and digital money businesses in the country as all types of the cryptocurrency are not securities and have no legal reference of their issuers. Meanwhile, J Ventures Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of China-based Jay Mart Public Company Limited listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), and Thailand-based digital asset exchange (TDAX), stated that they have not been affected by the BOT's recent call on financial institutes in the country to block all forms of cryptocurrency transactions, insisting that their businesses go on as usual, referring to the issuance of an initial coin offering (ICO) of JFin, a free software derivatives trade processing application written in Java, by J Ventures Co., Ltd. on February 14 and the digital exchange service offered by TDAX. (TNA)