South Korea’s FSA Clarifies Stance on Crypto Exchanges

By Swati Kishore

At the state affairs audit conducted by the South Korean government, the nation’s Financial Services Commission’s chief, Choi Jong Ku made it clear that there are no issues when it concerns the security and compliance in bank’s processes where they provide digital bank accounts to the cryptocurrency exchanges based in the country.

The state affairs audit was carried out by the government of South Korea to ascertain the progress of governmental agencies as well as their respective commissioners. Choi elaborated that in order to procure banking services from the financial institutions, digital asset platforms need to comply with the Anti Money Laundering and Know Your Customer systems.

The commissioner was quoted as saying:

“There exists no issue in banks providing virtual bank accounts to cryptocurrency exchanges. If digital asset trading platforms have KYC and AML systems in place, there is no problem in issuing virtual bank accounts to exchanges.”

In the light of this news, it is interesting to note that the South Korean government had, in the beginning of 2018, discouraged banks from working with crypto exchanges in order to prevent any money laundering in the disguise of digital currency. At the time Nonghyup, a prominent financial institution of the country, was working with cryptocurrency exchanges when it was pressured by the government to end providing services to digital exchanges.

The recent statement by Choi comes as a welcome step as the commissioner’s comments have clarified the Financial Services Commission’s opinion towards digital asset exchanges. The South Korea Blockchain Association has welcomed the FSA’s comments as they successfully resolve the issues related to AML and KYC that haunted the banking institutions providing services to crypto exchanges.