The Democratic Party of Korea and the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said they will actively push to amend the Electronic Financial Transactions Act to sharply toughen sanctions, including introducing a penalty surcharge and a compulsory performance fine for recent back-to-back hacking incidents. With little disagreement between the ruling and opposition parties, the bill appears likely to be handled first by the National Policy Committee.
The current Personal Information Protection Act allows the imposition of a penalty surcharge of up to 3% of total sales, but the amended Electronic Financial Transactions Act lacks an adequate ex post sanction. The intent is to introduce a penalty surcharge into the laws under the National Policy Committee's purview as well, to prompt stronger financial security. President Lee Jae-myung also instructed on Sep. that "swift measures be prepared so that strong responses, including punitive penalty surcharges, are taken against corporations that repeat security incidents."
Recently, Yoo Dong-soo, a Democratic Party lawmaker on the National Policy Committee, led the introduction of a related amendment. The bill would impose a penalty surcharge equivalent to 3% of total sales if incidents such as personal credit information leaks occur, and impose a compulsory performance fine of up to 50 million won for failure to comply with corrective orders.
In addition, a bill has been introduced to impose a penalty surcharge of up to 10% of sales for hacking incidents under the Personal Information Protection Act.
The ruling camp and the government also discussed the direction for enacting the Basic Act on Digital Assets. They are said to be seriously considering a consortium model for stablecoin issuance in the form of "banks + private issuers," setting banks' participation at 50% or more.
Lawmakers Kang said, "The biggest sticking point — who issues stablecoins — has been settled as a 'consortium model' by coordinating the positions of the Bank of Korea (BOK), the Financial Services Commission (FSC), and the banking sector," adding, "In particular, when forming the consortium, the ruling camp and the government agreed that banks would hold 50% or more (51%) equity."
The Bank of Korea (BOK) has argued that banks should be at the center of stablecoin issuance and that a bank consortium should hold more than 50% equity in companies applying for stablecoin authorization. The industry, on the other hand, has opposed the idea, saying that if banks become the largest shareholders, the barrier to issuing stablecoins could rise.
The ruling camp and the government plan to accelerate the review of the bill early next year through the Democratic Party's digital asset task force (TF) and public forums. Lawmakers Kang emphasized, "I strongly pressed the government to introduce the bill within Dec.," and "I asked for the government draft by the 10th, and if it does not agree, we will introduce it as a lawmaker's bill."
Meanwhile, regarding the amendment to the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act, the ruling camp and the government agreed to closely communicate with the opposition on ▲ improving the merger system based on fair value ▲ giving priority allocation of publicly offered new shares to ordinary shareholders in the event of a physical division ▲ introducing a mandatory tender offer system ▲ mandating the return of short-swing profits. On stabilizing finance for low-income people, they also formed a consensus to promptly handle the "Low-income Finance Stability Fund Establishment Act" and the so-called "bad bank (New Leap Fund)" bills to write off the debt of long-term borrowers in arrears.