Thailand’s SEC Wants to Revoke Huobi Thailand’s License

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission will ask the Ministry of Finance to revoke the digital asset trading license of Huobi Thailand, according to a statement posted on the SEC website.

• At a Sept. 2 meeting, the Thai SEC ordered the crypto exchange to continue a suspension of its services in the country. The SEC gave the exchange three months to return or buy back customers’ assets.
• Huobi Thailand has failed to fix system flaws identified more than five months ago, despite several deadline extensions, the SEC said.
• The flaws were found in trading, customer asset retention and information technology systems, among others, during a review between February and March of this year, according to the regulator.
• “Huobi Thailand offers digital asset trading services with local legal and compliance standards,” Huobi Global said in a WeChat message. “Due to product changes and to better serve local users with enhanced application and trading services, Huobi Thailand has temporarily decided to suspend trading service.”
• The Thai SEC first notified the company of the issues in March. In a follow-up meeting on April 1, the regulator asked it to suspend its services until it resolved the issues but the exchange asked for an extension, according to the SEC statement. The commission granted an extension until Aug. 31.
• In June, Huobi Thailand suspended its services and asked users to withdraw their assets as it was preparing to move its operations under a new name, DS Exchange, the Bangkok Post reported. Saturday’s SEC notice said Huobi (Thailand) Co. is now called DSDAQ (Thailand) Co.
• At the September meeting, the regulator found that Huobi Thailand had failed to fix the problems. It denied the exchange’s request for another extension.
• Huobi was the fifth exchange to obtain a digital asset trading license in Thailand. That was granted in July 2019.
• The Thai SEC released new rules for crypto custodians in late August.
• “Huobi Thailand is based on the original Huobi Cloud Thailand project built by Huobi Cloud and its local Thai partner, GLT,” Huobi Global said. “Huobi Cloud provides only technical product support and brand authorization. The current brand authorization and technical service contracts with Huobi Thailand have expired, and Huobi Cloud will no longer provide support for this project in the future.”
• Regulators from Singapore to Spain have been increasing oversight of crypto exchanges.

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UPDATE (SEPT. 6, 14:40 UTC): Clarifies link between Huobi Thailand and Huobi Global