Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission chairman Wellington Koo told a joint session of the parliament and the cabinet that Taiwan will not follow the paths of China and South Korea in an outright ban on crypto-related activity, Cryptocoinsnews reports.
Instead, the head of Taiwan’s financial regulator pledged to adopt a friendlier stance to support the development and adoption of both cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the country.
Koo expressed the official stance following a request by legislator Jason Hsu, a congressman from Taiwan’s Nationalist party which has long adopted a deregulatory pro-FinTech stance.
Hsu stated: “Just because China and South Korea are banning, doesn’t mean that Taiwan should follow suit – there is a huge opportunity for growth in the future. We should emulate Japan, where they treat cryptocurrency as a highly regulated, highly monitored industry like securities.”
Taiwan’s Parliament is also expected to consider the “Financial Technology Innovation Experimentation Act.’
If the bill passes, the legislation will effectively establish a fintech sandbox for cryptocurrency and blockchain startups in a deregulated space.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission on September 29, took the decision to ban all forms of cryptocurrency-based money raising activity — "initial coin offerings".
The regulatory body said it had "serious concern about the fact that the current market funds are being pushed into a non-productive speculative direction.”
Earlier in September China’s central bank the People’s Bank of China proclaimed initial coin offerings illegal and demanded all related fundraising activity to be halted immediately.