The National Assembly of South Korea has reportedly approved of a revised law, on how to report and use special financial transaction data, with the highlight being the release of a crypto exchange-focused permit system. 

Specifically, virtual asset operators, nominally crypto exchange platforms, will now be required to provide reports of their operational activities, to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU)under the Financial Services Commission, upon receiving the “real name-confirmed accounts” confirmation from commercial banks.

Should said firms unable to complete their duty, they could face a maximum of 5 years of jail time, or 50 million won ($42,000) in fines.

The law, officially in effect starting March 2021, is an effort to encourage crypto exchange platforms to complete the job of obtaining a real-name account and ISMS authentication, along with operation report in under 6 months, following the official effective day of the bill. 

The Financial Supervisory Service and the FIU will also invest more efforts in making the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) system for digital assets, nominally cryptocurrency,  stronger, in response to the suggestions by the Financial Action Task Force ahead of the law’s implementation.

The revised law will help make the preparation process sub-law regulations faster, covering which crypto assets firms will need to stay in compliance with AML requirements, as well as conditions and procedures for issuing real-name accounts.

Currently, only Upbit, Coinwon, Bithumb and Korbit have real-name accounts.