FIU "Special Attention and Effort Needed for Virtual Asset Anti-Money Laundering"

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission announced on the 16th that all financial sectors and the virtual asset industry need to exercise even greater caution when fulfilling anti-money laundering obligations related to virtual assets.

On the same day, FIU explained that it held the '2023 2nd Related Agencies Council' chaired by Director Lee Yoon-soo, together with 12 financial-related institutions and 5 banks implementing anti-money laundering systems, sharing the recognition that special attention and efforts are necessary to prevent money laundering.

Director Lee stated, "Recent media reports have raised suspicions that North Korea's main funding sources for nuclear and missile development involve virtual asset theft, and that Hamas armed groups have used virtual assets to raise funds," emphasizing the need to strengthen efforts to prevent proliferation finance (financial activities supporting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction) not only in the financial sector but also in the virtual asset industry.

He added, "South Korea has widely adopted virtual assets and new payment methods, requiring a more robust anti-money laundering system," and said, "Given the growing concerns over social instability factors such as drug trafficking and gambling using virtual assets, we will further strengthen cooperation with the prosecution, police, and others."

Additionally, during the council meeting, based on the previous year's anti-money laundering system implementation evaluation results, necessary improvements by sector and industry were discussed. While areas measuring the establishment of internal regulations and evaluations of large cash transactions (CTR) were generally well implemented, the independent audit sector that self-assesses the appropriateness of anti-money laundering tasks and the customer identification evaluation sector were found to be weak, and improvements in these areas were requested.

FIU requested all sectors to expand dedicated anti-money laundering personnel and foster anti-money laundering experts, as there is still a shortage of dedicated personnel. It also announced plans to expand the related agencies council to quarterly meetings starting next year and to hold working-level consultative bodies as needed.

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