Japan's FSA Asks Crypto Exchanges to Introduce Withdrawal Delays

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) has requested that crypto exchanges implement withdrawal delays and other security measures to combat increasingly sophisticated scams involving digital assets. The FSA jointly made this request with the National Police Agency, citing growing losses among crypto exchange users and cases where funds obtained through fraudulent schemes are being transferred to exchange accounts.

The proposed safeguards include restricting crypto withdrawals for a specified period after customers deposit fiat currency or purchase digital assets. Exchanges were also asked to require users to pre-register crypto withdrawal addresses and impose a waiting period before newly added addresses can be used.

Other measures suggested by the FSA include customer-specific withdrawal limits, stronger transaction monitoring, phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, and checks to ensure that the name of a bank remitter matches the crypto account holder's name. The FSA emphasized that these measures are not binding rules, but rather guidelines for exchanges to determine how to implement them based on their operations, services, and exposure to misuse.