Australian Financial Regulator Cancels FTX's Local Entity License

Author: JESSE COGHLAN, COINTELEGRAPH; Compiler: Songxue, Jinse Finance

** Australia’s financial services regulator has finally canceled the financial license of FTX Australia, the local subsidiary of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. **

On July 19, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced the cancellation of the license, which took effect on July 14. **FTX Australia will still be allowed to provide limited financial services during the end of trading with clients before July 12 next year. **

Until then,** it still has to make arrangements to compensate customers, the regulator said. ** FTX Australia has approximately 30,000 retail clients serving 132 local companies.

In November, ASIC suspended FTX Australia’s Australian Financial Services (AFS) license, which allows it to create derivatives and foreign exchange contracts for local clients.

The license suspension comes days after FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022.

On the same day that FTX went bankrupt, the voluntary administrators of Sydney-based investment and advisory firm KordaMentha were appointed to help restructure FTX Australia and its subsidiary FTX Express.

In a report to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court last month, the head of restructuring for FTX’s global entities said the firm had recovered about $7 billion in liquid assets but estimated that a total of $8.7 billion worth of client assets had been misappropriated.

According to reports, FTX may be relaunched as a brand new exchange, and its restructuring team is in talks with parties who may be interested in financially supporting such a restart.