Overview
- The Financial Services Agency and National Police Agency asked the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association on Aug. 6 to press licensed exchanges to tighten withdrawal rules and monitoring.
- Regulators requested specific steps including pre-registration of withdrawal addresses, waiting periods for new destinations, personalized withdrawal limits, faster freezing of suspicious accounts, and sharing fraud indicators with police.
- Authorities also urged stronger transaction and access monitoring, phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, impersonation and name-matching checks for bank remitters, and faster customer verification when activity looks risky.
- Police data cited by regulators show 18,067 special fraud cases through May 2026 with losses of about ¥151.47 billion, which officials say is driving the push for added exchange controls.
- The request is non-binding and routed through the industry body so implementation will vary by platform; watch for exchange notices, JVCEA guidance, and any move by the FSA to convert parts of the request into formal supervision.