China in process of blocking foreign crypto exchanges from offering trading services

Financial regulators in China are in the process of blocking over 100 foreign crypto exchanges that are making an attempt to offer trading services to domestic investors.

As per a report in the Shanghai Securities Times, the China National Fintech Risk Rectification Office has identified 124 trading platforms till now. These exchanges have overseas IP addresses but are still available in China. The office plans to increase its monitoring activity related to commercial use of cryptocurrency and block internet access to the trading platforms.

The National Fintech Risk Rectification Office, a government agency, was empowered in 2016 by China's State Council to protect against financial risk. The agency deals in issues like peer-to-peer lending and cryptocurrency trading.

In 2017, the People's Bank of China had announced a rule banning initial coin offerings (ICOs) and consequently crypto trading platforms in the country. Post this action, major exchanges which were based in China moved their businesses overseas.

Currently, internet access to some major exchanges such as Binance, OKEx, and Bitfinex may be unavailable in China. The agency is in the process of permanently shutting down domestic websites and official accounts on the WeChat messaging app. They will be blocked if they provide crypto trading and ICO services. Recently, many Chinese cryptocurrency media outlets were banned from operating on WeChat. Some of the sites were shut down permanently.

The agency is also having discussions with third-party payments vendors for scrutinising and deactivating accounts suspected of handling cryptocurrency transactions.