South African lawyer calls for cryptocurrency regulation due to growing complaints about scammers – Bits Media

Implementation Ombudsman Advocate FAIS bill in South Africa Nonkumbulo Tshombe called for accelerating the development of cryptocurrency regulation in the country due to the increase in fraud.

Nonkumbulo Chombe (Nonkumbulo Tshombe)
reported, what with 2020 Office of the Ombudsman for the implementation of the bill on Financial advice and intermediary services (DO) in South Africa recorded a significant increase in complaints from users, who tried to invest in cryptocurrencies. However, Tshombe noted, that the organization cannot accept these claims, since the Republic of South Africa has not yet developed cryptocurrency regulation.

“Crypto assets are not classified as a financial product. It means, that they are not within the scope of our powers", - explained the lawyer.

Despite, that South Africa lacks clear rules for regulating cryptocurrencies, Financial Conduct Authority of South Africa (Fsca) tries to take action against organizations and individuals, working with digital assets. The FSCA has repeatedly warned the public about the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies. The department's statements became more frequent after the closure of the Mirror Trading International fraudulent scheme, gathered 23 000 BTC for an amount more $700 million. Due to stricter requirements of the South African regulator, this fall, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange was forced to stop trading derivatives in the country.

Tshombe noted, that South Africa is already taking certain steps towards creating a regulatory framework for the supervision of cryptocurrency activities. Last year, the FSCA proposed to assign digital currencies the status of financial products. Besides, recently FSCA Commissioner Junati Kamlana (With us Kamlana) stated, that next year the department will pay special attention to the development of regulation of crypto assets, involving other agencies in the work.