Financial Supervisory Service Organizational Restructuring Emphasizes 'Financial Consumer Protection'

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[Asia Economy Reporter Jihwan Park] The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) recently decided to establish an additional dedicated dispute mediation department in response to the rapid increase in dispute demands related to insurance and private equity funds. To support digital finance and financial innovation, the existing IT and fintech-related organizations will be reorganized into a digital finance supervision and inspection department system.

On the 21st, the FSS announced that it will carry out an organizational restructuring to respond to the increasing demand for supervision of financial digitalization and to strengthen financial consumer protection.

First, the FSS reorganized the Financial Consumer Insurance Division. The Financial Consumer Protection Supervision Bureau and the Financial Product Sales Supervision Bureau were integrated into the Financial Consumer Protection General Bureau, unifying tasks related to the Financial Consumer Protection Act, consumer protection systems, and planning and improving systems related to financial product sales. This aims to reinforce the on-site inspection functions such as consumer protection status evaluation and mystery shopping alongside the product-stage analysis functions of the Financial Product Analysis Office.

The Financial Complaints General Bureau will concentrate on complaint-related systems, analysis, and investigation functions, and will establish an additional dedicated dispute mediation department to quickly respond to the rapidly increasing dispute demands such as actual medical expense claims and private equity funds.

To support financial digitalization and financial innovation, the IT and fintech-related organizations have been converted into a digital finance supervision and inspection department system. The Fintech Innovation Office has been reorganized into the Digital Finance Supervision Bureau, which will be responsible for supervising IT and electronic financial operators and responding to new licensing demands. The Digital Finance Inspection Bureau will be in charge of inspections of IT and electronic financial operators, MyData operators, and others.

In response to new supervision demands and the rapid increase in supervision needs, the Accounting Planning and Supervision Office has been reorganized into the Auditor Supervision Office. This change aims to strengthen the public nature of accounting firms and shift the supervision approach to focus on improving external audit quality and preventive measures.

Team-level organizations have also been reinforced. To resolve the backlog in fund registration and review, the Fund Review Team within the Asset Management Supervision Bureau has been expanded to two teams, and an additional inspection team has been newly established within the Asset Management Inspection Bureau, where inspection demands have recently surged. To strengthen external cooperation and international collaboration related to ESG, a Sustainable Finance Team has also been newly created within the International Bureau.

The FSS stated, "We plan to complete the regular personnel appointments by the end of February by conducting the remaining team leader and team member appointments," adding, "We will continue to establish a personnel culture based on ability and performance so that we can become a supervisory organization trusted by the public and the market."

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