With the financial world changing so rapidly due to advances in technology, one Japanese regulator is taking steps to ensure it is in line with the most recent developments. The Financial Services Agency announced this Wednesday that it has created a Strategy Development and Management Bureau that will be responsible for providing an up-to-date regulatory regime.

The move comes less than a year after the Japanese regulator announced that it would be closing its Inspection Bureau. This division was set up in the late 1990s in response to the Asian financial crisis.

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Intended as a means of creating transparency in the financial services industry, the Inspection Bureau was also used by the authorities to keep the industry in check. For instance, the regulatory body would perform on-site inspections to ensure nothing untoward was happening within the confines of firms’ offices

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Taking the reins

The Strategy Development and Management Bureau, which has now replaced the Inspection Bureau, will perform an array of tasks. Most notably, the new division will be responsible for designing new financial policies.

It will also be handling tasks related to a wide array of fields within the financial services industry. For example, the bureau will be dealing with anti-money laundering procedures, developments in financial technology and the cryptocurrency market.

The Strategy Development and Management Bureau will also be continuing the activities of the Inspection Bureau. On-site inspections at financial services institutions, for instance, will now be carried out by the new bureau.

These developments will likely be welcomed by the Japanese financial services industry, particularly by those working in cryptocurrency. Despite its anarchistic origins, the cryptocurrency industry is becoming more desirous of institutional and regulatory recognition, two things that would grant it a greater level of respectability.