South Korean Bankers Demand Definite Crypto Regulations

When it comes to crypto acceptance and adoption, one of the most progressive countries globally is South Korea. With the country expressing more and more support for blockchain technology and digital assets, many in its traditional financial industry have called for more definite laws to be developed for regulating it. Earlier this week, a press release was published in which members of the National Assembly in Korea and representatives of commercial banks called for the development of ‘virtual asset business laws’ in South Korea. The secretary of the National Policy Committee, Rep. Kim Byeong-wook hosted the meeting, which was called the ‘National Assembly Seminar for the Virtual Asset Business Law’. 

The meeting was sponsored by a crypto lending firm called Delio via its subsidiary in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space called DUCATO. According to the participants, creating progressive laws would be helpful in establishing a developed digital finance industry and would also give companies’ revenue a solid boost. Byeong-wook pointed out in his opening speech that the National Assembly should come up with a law and system for developing the virtual asset industry and others related to it. In addition, the laws should be designed to ensure investor protection. 

The ruling Democratic party’s floor leader, Kim Tae-nyeon expressed the same idea and said that blockchain technology had become a vital element of both public and private life. He shed some light on the Korean New Deal, which has been designed for applying blockchain technology to different areas of the economy, including digital identity insurance, energy, and social welfare. Introduced back in July, this deal also contains the steps taken by the National Assembly for revising laws pertaining to digital currency development. According to representatives of most commercial banks, they need digital asset legislation for figuring out their own involvement in the growing crypto space. 

Shinhan Bank’s Head of Research and Development, Jang Hyeon-gi stated that banks would know what rules to follow in the DeFi industry if some progressive laws were developed. This bank has already shown a positive reaction to crypto and they had announced a few months ago that they would be introducing ‘crypto-asset services’ in collaboration with Woori Bank, a fellow banking giant. It was reported by local news sources that an amendment in the Financial Transactions Information Act in the country had prompted both of these banks to announce their crypto initiatives. 

The Act is planning to change legislation pertaining to digital assets from next year in order to improve their accessibility for worldwide investors. Hence, the banks realized that there would be an influx of investors from next year, so they moved into cornering the market. While new policies are expected, the Special Payments Act, as mentioned earlier, has also led to some raised eyebrows. The Act includes anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) policies, which would be a direct contradiction to the Personal Information Protection Act that exists. According to the latter, companies cannot ask citizens to provide information, which includes their social security numbers.