South Korea’s bankers association, The Korean Federation of Banks’ (KFB) draft report has been leaked which divulges that the alliance might ask the upcoming President to approve acceptance of crypto by the local banks.
The report states that the local banks should be allowed to pursue virtual digital assets including crypto trading platforms, e-wallets and custody services.
The federation believes that local banks entering the crypto industry will increase the efficiency of the investor protection measures since the existing crypto regulations are focused on anti-money laundering measures.
The draft was distributed to various banks for review before being submitted to the Presidential Transition Committee.
A member of the federation said that the draft might not be the final version since the banks might not approve it.
KFB’s members include Korea’s top commercial banks such as KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NongHyup, alongside the online-only banks KakaoBank and K bank.
The current regime does not allow local banks to participate in the crypto industry directly. However, the local banks act as service partners to the crypto exchanges or by investing in custody services.
South Korea is a major crypto hub with Koreans having invested a total of $43.6 billion in the digital assets class in just the previous year. The draft comes with the upcoming change of power to the hands of the newly elected President, Yoon Suk-yeol.
Yoon Suk-yeol ran a pro-crypto campaign and even issued NFTs of his own images and videos in the days leading upto the election. The NFT drop was an effort to woo the young voters of the country and it clearly worked since he won the election, albeit by a very slim margin of 1%.
