FIU Gathers Opinions from Virtual Asset Industry on 'Concerns Regarding Enforcement Decree of the Special Act'

FIU Gathers Opinions from Virtual Asset Industry on 'Concerns Regarding Enforcement Decree of the Special Act'

Meeting called for the day after tomorrow... Industry: "Reporting all transactions over 10 million won will cause confusion"

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission will hear opinions from the virtual asset industry regarding the amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the 'Special Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information' (Special Act) that was pre-announced in March.

According to the industry on the 11th, the FIU will hold a meeting with representatives from the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA) and Korean Won virtual asset exchanges at 10 AM on the 13th at the Seoul Government Complex in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

This meeting appears to be a response to DAXA's submission of an opinion paper on the 29th of last month, based on the views of 27 domestically registered Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), stating that if the amendment is implemented as originally drafted, on-site confusion is expected.

At the time, DAXA agreed with the purpose of strengthening the anti-money laundering (AML) system, but argued that some amendments included obligations not present in the Special Act and contained discriminatory elements compared to other financial sectors.

In particular, the industry expressed concerns about the amendment requiring virtual asset service providers to submit suspicious transaction reports (STRs) to the FIU for all virtual asset transactions exceeding 10 million won.

It was explained that if the amendment proceeds as is, the number of suspicious transaction reports from the top five virtual asset exchanges would surge 85 times compared to the previous year's figures, making practical operation difficult.

Additionally, the industry's position is that other aspects should also be reconsidered, such as imposing a customer identification verification obligation on virtual asset service providers and the lack of clear standards for assessing the risk of overseas operators.

An industry official said, "The most concerning part is reporting all transactions over 10 million won. If corporate customers enter, most transaction amounts are estimated to be over 10 million won, and submitting an STR every time would be a burden, and we are also concerned about potential complaints."