Quote from: AndrH on March 13, 2013, 10:35:45 AM

Really???

Yep, they moved to Poland after getting sued (and losing the case) in France by the bank they had there.
Actually they don't have any kind of license at all, do you see a financial registration number on their website? Me neither. (And Bitstamp is in the exact same situation)

That might come as a surprise to some folks, but in order to collect deposits from the public and maintain a fiat balance on their behalf you need to comply with certain licensing and auditing requirements.

The advantage of the licensing is that the customer are legally segregated from the company's funds. MtGox didn't get heavily fined in France, good for them, but if they had been fined the money would have been taken from their French account because it would legally belong to the mtgox company, not to their customers. When things are done properly, the company holding the fiat funds on behalf of its customers can go bankrupt without the client funds being in danger, because legally it does not belong to the company itself, but to its customers. Complying with the law gives the customer a much better protection.