Source: Adobe/piter2121

Japan’s Monex Group has become the latest financial company to offer its shareholders cryptocurrency benefits – and will become the first major securities firm to give out end-of-year bitcoin (BTC) benefits.

Per an official announcement, Monex – one of the country’s biggest securities companies and the operator of the Coincheck crypto exchange – will award all its shareholders with 500 yen (USD 4.52) worth of bitcoin. The company did not specify whether the award will depend on the number of shares held.

The catch is that the shareholders must either be existing Coincheck account holders, or will need to open an account at Coincheck in order to redeem the benefits.

The company says that the handout will be made on top of an end-of-financial-year package. The current financial year, FY2019, comes to an end at the end of this month.

Monex says it has yet to decide whether its bitcoin handout is a one-off, or if it will look to reward its shareholders with crypto again in the future.

The company wrote,

“[We] have yet to determine whether Monex will continue to offer BTC as a shareholder reward in FY2020.”

The move comes after Monex rival and fellow cryptocurrency exchange operator SBI began offering XRP tokens of a similar amount to shareholders of its Morningstar subsidiary last year.

SBI gave its Morningstar shareholders ripple tokens as both mid-FY19 and year-end benefits. However, again, to redeem benefits, shareholders were required to either be existing customers of its SBI VC Trade exchange, or to open an account on the platform.

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