The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has recently declared that it plans to support the crypto industry in the future.
ASIC commissioner Cathie Armour confirmed today that the objectives of the regulator are to “maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of [Australia’s] financial system and the firms that operate within it,” and make sure that “all investors and consumers have the confidence to participate in the system.”
“When we’re talking about new innovations like [DLT], or new products like various crypto asset products, from our perspective at ASIC, we are really interested in how those products can be utilized to improve how our financial system operates.”
Armour even pointed out one such innovation, namely the fact that the Australian Securities Exchange is working on replacing the CHESS clearing system with a distributed ledger-based system.
“We are spending a lot of time looking at the ASX’s proposal to change its clearing and settlements system,” Armour declared.
The commissioner has also pointed out that ASIC has received a high volume of complaints that involve crypto scams:
“As part of our job in dealing with consumer issues and investor issues, we receive a lot of complaints when things aren’t going right. We know that this is probably a concern as much to all of you who participate in the industry as it is to us.”
Armour asked industry participants to notify the regulator about “poor practices or scam activity,” saying that the ASIC “would like to take action to disrupt poor practice in this sector.”
A month ago, the ASIC issued a warning which mentioned that dating sites and apps were known to be host to crypto-asset scams and that the number was increasing: “Beware of profiles that suggest or pressure you to participate in ‘third party’ crypto investments. Most crypto-asset investment opportunities reported to ASIC appear to be outright scams with no actual underlying investment.”
Source: Cointelegraph.com