[Asia Exclusive] CEO Ryu Young-jun: "Finance Also Needs Negative Regulation"

The Enforcement Decree Is More Important Than the Electronic Financial Transactions Act
South Korea Uses a Positive Regulation Approach
More Preemptive Regulation Remains

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] "The biggest difference between IT and finance? Speed. The speed of IT is incomparably faster than finance. At first, it was almost hard to adapt."

Ryu Young-jun, CEO of Kakao Pay, is currently active as the top executive of a financial company, but he was previously more recognized as a developer of Kakao Voice Talk. What does an IT developer see as the difference between IT and finance?

Ryu first pointed to ‘speed.’ He explained, "IT aims for quarterly services, but finance basically operates on an annual speed. We have a habit of setting quarterly goals, but regulators and partners have not seen this fast pace, so there are difficulties in rhythm and speed differences."

However, since his appointment as CEO of Kakao Pay in 2017, he has come to fully understand the speed of the financial industry. Finance is a regulated industry, and above all, trust and stability are most important. Ryu said, "In IT, if an idea for a product or service comes up and is created, there are hardly any regulatory issues, so decisions on whether to continue the business are made within three months. But in finance, where trust and stability must be guaranteed, product development does not take long, but investigating regulations and changing them takes a very long time."

Regarding the direction of national regulation, he emphasized the need for ‘negative regulation.’ Ryu pointed out, "In finance, overall, there is more preemptive regulation rather than freedom for new attempts and retrospective laws. Other countries have negative regulation where certain things are prohibited, but in Korea, what is allowed is defined, and other things must be reported, which is a ‘positive regulation’ system."

On the recently controversial Electronic Financial Transactions Act amendment (Jeongeumbeop), he said that while the bill is important, the enforcement decree is more important. Ryu, who also served as chairman of the Korea Fintech Industry Association, said, "The amendment to the Jeongeumbeop has been proposed, but all the related details are delegated to the enforcement decree, which has not yet been issued. What is more important is the enforcement decree that will come after the passage of the Jeongeumbeop, and there will be major debates then as well."

Born in Seoul, 1977

Graduated from Konkuk University, Department of Computer Engineering, 2000

Master’s in Information and Communication, Konkuk Graduate School, 2002

Team Leader of Kakao Voice Talk Development, 2011

Head of Kakao Payment Business Division, 2013

Vice President in charge of Fintech at Daum Kakao, 2015

Vice President in charge of Kakao Fintech Business, 2016

CEO of Kakao Pay, 2017

3rd Chairman of Korea Fintech Industry Association, 2020

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