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South Korea plans to tweak KYC and investor protection rules

Chris Hamblin Editor London 19 June 2018

South Korea plans to tweak KYC and investor protection rules

The Financial Services Commission of South Korea wants the Government to amend the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Reporting and Use of Certain Financial Transaction Information in line with standards set forth by the Financial Action Task Force. It is also reportedly about to draw up a Bill for the purposes of protecting investors from sharp practice.

The amendments to the transaction reporting law, which the regulator has already drafted up for parliamentary approval, seek to add a few new 'know your customer' rules to the country's anti-money-laundering regime. The regulator wants to expand the meaning of the phrase "financial service provider" in the Enforcement Decree to include any entity that the Commissioner of the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit believes to be at risk of being used by money launderers. Public enterprises and other government-affiliated institutions are targets. The statutory meaning of the phrase "one-off financial transaction" is to be changed to refer to a transaction performed by a customer who has not established a business relationship with a financial service provider. One-off financial transactions are to be subdivided into more specific types with newly established threshold amounts for reporting. On this leg of the reforms, the public has until 26 June to send in comments.
 
Meanwhile, Yonhap reports that the financial regulator's vice chairman, Kim Yong-beom, has told a public meeting that the South Korean Government wants to draw up a Bill to allow consumers to buy non-life insurance products without certain policy conditions and to ask their banks to reactivate their dormant bank accounts online. It also (whether with or without legislation is unknown) wants to reorganise the FSC to help it (or, perhaps, to compel it) to hold firms more accountable for harming customers. Kim spoke against banks selling services and products to consumers on the back of 'false information.'

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