Bank of Korea strengthens monitoring of anonymous transactions in cryptocurrencies or related to new FATF regulations

According to local media reports in South Korea, South Korea's second-largest financial group, Shinhan Bank, plans to impose stricter regulations on cryptocurrency users' accounts, with the goal of completely abolishing anonymous cryptocurrency transactions in Korea. .

According to reports, the bank will take “special measures” and assign specialists to analyze exchange accounts and check transactions. It also said it will work to develop an artificial intelligence system that will use deep learning to analyze and detect illegal transactions accurately and quickly later this month.

The news caused some sensation in the Korean currency circle, after the South Korean government said in May that it would closely monitor the cryptocurrency market after the bitcoin price exceeded 10 million won (about $8,400).

In early 2018, the Korea Financial Services Commission (FSC) issued a rules document that was designed to make cryptocurrency transactions transparent.

The document also lists some general anti-money laundering rules for cryptocurrencies in the country.

By June 2018, there had been some updates to the regulatory rules, and the FSC stated that banks must begin to continuously monitor related accounts.

At the end of 2018, the head of the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said that regulators are accepting cryptocurrencies. He said that it is clear that banks can accept deposits related to cryptocurrencies by following the "KYC" rules proposed earlier this year.

At about the same time, the National Bank of Korea and the NH Bank were reviewed by the Financial Services Commission to check whether they had problems with implementing anti-money laundering guidelines. Later, the two banks were also inspected by the Korea Financial Supervisory Authority (FSS) along with HANA Bank for similar reasons.

The industry has recently faced additional pressure as the recent Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requires cryptocurrency exchanges to share customer information . On the Korean side, it is likely that the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will be strictly adhered to.

However, the news of Shinhan Bank does not seem to raise concerns about the Korean exchange.

“The Korean government only allows Bithumb to use NH Bank. Therefore, we have nothing to do with Shinhan Bank. Their news is not related to our business,” said a source at Bithumb. The exchange is from Singapore. The Chain Trading Alliance (BXA) controls, to some extent, Korea's largest exchange.

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