The financial authorities are reviewing a plan to expand the scope of the "travel rule," which requires the mandatory provision of sender and recipient information for anti-money laundering (AML) when transferring virtual assets (coins), from the current transactions exceeding 1 million won to include small transactions of 1 million won or less. The travel rule is a regulation that requires domestic virtual asset exchanges to collect information such as the names and wallet addresses of senders and recipients when they receive requests to deposit or withdraw cryptocurrency, and is also called the real-name system for virtual assets.
On the 29th, the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), chaired by Director Lee Hyeong-ju, held the first meeting of the task force (TF) on revising the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information (Special Act) and discussed future directions, including strengthening regulation of virtual assets, implementing international standards, and streamlining inspections and sanctions. Since the introduction of the anti-money laundering system 25 years ago, critics have said it has failed to fully reflect the reality of a surge in cross-border crimes and serious offenses harming people's livelihoods.
The TF plans to continue discussions on three pillars: ▲ refining the regulatory framework for virtual asset service providers ▲ improving consistency with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) international standards ▲ enhancing anti-money laundering inspections and sanctions. The plan also seeks customized anti-money laundering measures that reflect the new virtual asset environment, such as expanding the scope of the travel rule and institutionalizing stablecoins.
The Special Act revision TF will discuss introducing an account suspension system to prevent the rapid withdrawal of funds from accounts suspected of being used for crimes and imposing anti-money laundering obligations on professionals such as lawyers, accountants, and tax accountants.
The Special Act revision TF will hold regular meetings twice a month to detail the improvement tasks, and the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit plans to prepare anti-money laundering system improvement measures in the first half of next year based on the discussions.