The Bank of Korea: "Pilot Transactions for Foreign Exchange Market Structural Improvement Successful, Official Implementation in July"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Bank of Korea announced that the pilot trading of the 'Foreign Exchange Market Structural Improvement,' which includes extending the market opening hours until 2 a.m. the next day, was successfully completed during February and March.

On the 22nd, the Bank of Korea and the Ministry of Economy and Finance stated that the pilot operation conducted in February and March ahead of the official implementation of the 'Foreign Exchange Market Structural Improvement' scheduled for July was successfully concluded.

The main content of the Foreign Exchange Market Structural Improvement is to open the foreign exchange market and extend the opening hours until 2 a.m. the next day. With the extended hours, transactions conducted from midnight to 2 a.m. the following day will be recognized as same-day transactions. The two institutions have been conducting pilot operations since early this year in preparation for the official implementation in July.

Currently, a total of 15 foreign financial institutions have registered as Registered Foreign Exchange Institutions (RFI) to participate in the pilot operation.

RFIs refer to foreign financial institutions that meet certain requirements and register with the foreign exchange authorities to trade directly in the domestic foreign exchange market.

The two institutions checked whether a series of procedures such as transaction execution, transaction confirmation, settlement, and reporting were properly conducted through four rounds of pilot trading.

A Bank of Korea official said, "So far, a total of 15 institutions have conducted pilot trading of spot foreign exchange and foreign exchange swaps by time zone (London time zone, after midnight) through two domestic foreign exchange brokerage firms, and it was completed without any issues."

The two institutions plan to gradually expand the pilot operation before the official implementation. From April to June, they plan to conduct pilot trading at least twice a month.

Meanwhile, foreign financial institutions that apply for RFI registration by the end of this month can participate in the pilot operation after completing the registration process and preparing for trading.

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