Financial Supervisory Service Imposes Administrative Sanctions and Refers 1,170 Foreign Exchange Transaction Violations to Prosecutors Last Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji-hwan Park] Last year, Mr. B, who was studying in Canada, was fined for purchasing real estate in Canada for $200,000 using funds remitted as living expenses for international students. This violated foreign exchange transaction regulations that require residents to report to the head of a foreign exchange bank or the governor of the Bank of Korea when acquiring overseas real estate. Even if the funds were legally remitted abroad through proper procedures such as living expenses for international students, reporting is mandatory when acquiring overseas real estate.

The Financial Supervisory Service announced on the 1st that, as a result of investigating violations of foreign exchange transaction laws last year, administrative sanctions such as fines and warnings were imposed on 1,103 cases, and 67 cases were referred to the prosecution.

Among the administrative sanctions, fines accounted for the largest portion with 605 cases (54.9%), followed by warnings with 498 cases (45.1%).

Looking at the violations by transaction parties, companies accounted for 689 cases (58.9%), and individuals accounted for 481 cases (41.1%).

Regarding violations by transaction type, overseas direct investment was the most frequent with 602 cases (54.6%), followed by loans with 148 cases (13.4%), real estate investment with 118 cases (10.7%), and securities trading with 34 cases (3.1%).

Additionally, violations of new reporting obligations were the most common at 51.5%, followed by violations of change reporting (22.7%), reporting violations (21.1%), and payment procedure violations (4.7%).

The Financial Supervisory Service cautioned, "Under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, individuals and companies must report in advance to the head of a foreign exchange bank when conducting capital transactions, and in cases such as overseas direct investment and overseas real estate transactions, there is an obligation to report at each transaction stage even after the initial report."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.