Regulation Update: Thai SEC to annul Huobi’s license in the country

The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced to propose to the Ministry of Finance, permanent revocation of Huobi’s business license in the nation. Additionally, the Thai SEC has instructed Huobi exchange to subsist the suspension of its services in the country. Huobi has three months to return or buy back customers’ assets. This ban has come instead of Huobi’s failure to fix flaws pointed out by the commission months ago.

“During the suspension of such services, Huobi must return all assets to customers within 3 months from the date the SEC has the resolution to order.”, the SEC mentioned in its latest announcement.

SEC highlighted systematic flaws in Huobi’s functioning

SEC’s investigation into the exchange between February 2021 and March 2021 scouted systematic flaws within the functioning of the exchange. SEC highlighted inadequacy in Huobi’s trading, customer asset retention, information technology systems, etc. After SEC’s first notification of Huobi’s systematic flaws, the commission decided to temporarily suspend the exchange’s services in another follow-up meeting in April. Furthermore, the commission emphasized that it had extended the correction period several times as requested by Huobi, including the total amendment period of 5 months and 12 days.

SEC denied exchange’s further appeals for extension

The exchange did respond, stating that it had negotiated a new work system and requested to further the extension period for correction. Yet, the exchange was unable to provide the SEC with factual evidence, supporting Huobi’s ability to fix the mentioned flaws within the requested timeframe. This in turn led to the rejection of Huobi’s extension request and temporary suspension of the exchange’s services under Section 35, paragraph two of the Royal Decree on Digital Asset Businesses, of the Digital Assets Act.

“Huobi Thailand offers digital asset trading services with local legal and compliance standards…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 exchange said in a WeChat message.