Financial Supervisory Service "Investigating the Cause of Kakao Financial Service Disruption... Monitoring Compensation for Damages"

Financial Supervisory Service Conducts Emergency Inspection of Kakao Financial Affiliates

Kakao Bank and Pay Take Swift Actions on Data Transfer... KakaoTalk-Linked Services Suspended
Kakao Securities Reports No Customer Account Cloud Storage Damage

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] On the 16th, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced that it conducted an emergency inspection of the service suspension situation of Kakao's financial affiliates due to the fire at Kakao's data center.

According to the FSS, Kakao Bank's data center is located in Sangam-dong, Seoul, so there was no direct damage to the computer system from this fire. Financial transactions such as account transfers and remittances are operating normally, but since the simple transfer service via KakaoTalk (with a daily limit of 1 million KRW) is partially not functioning, users have been guided to use the account transfer method for remittances.

In the case of Kakao Pay, although the main data center located in Pangyo was affected by the fire, it immediately linked its disaster recovery center in Gasan Digital Complex with the network, enabling financial transactions. After the fire incident the previous day, remittance and payment services were suspended, but most services were sequentially restored to normal from 7 p.m. on the same day.

However, authentication services and consultation services linked to KakaoTalk are currently under restoration.

Kakao Securities immediately transferred data processing related to the Pangyo main data center to the disaster recovery center in Gasan Digital Complex right after the fire, and customer accounts are managed through cloud services, so no damage occurred.

The FSS stated, "We recognize the occurrence of public damage such as some financial services not functioning due to the Kakao data center fire as a serious issue and are responding urgently," adding, "We plan to thoroughly investigate the causes of the prolonged disruptions in some remittance and payment financial services and the operation status of the emergency response plan."

Additionally, the FSS plans to guide prompt compensation for financial consumer damages and monitor whether appropriate compensation is provided in a timely manner for reported damage cases. An FSS official said, "Since the fire incident, inquiries regarding service disruptions and recovery status, as well as questions about the non-receipt confirmation of KakaoTalk remittance results, have been received."

After the data center fire incident, the FSS will check whether Kakao's financial affiliates took swift actions according to the emergency response plan and will conduct inspections if necessary. Furthermore, it plans to guide all financial companies to re-examine their response plans in case of data center fires.

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