Summary
- Financial authorities held a council meeting chaired by FIU Director Park Kwang to strengthen the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) system related to virtual assets.
- Council participants discussed response measures to new money laundering methods, particularly announcing plans to operate a joint response team with various institutions to prevent livelihood crimes.
- The FIU announced it will focus on inspecting virtual accounts and simple remittance abuse transactions, strengthening inspections in cooperation with inspection agencies.
Financial authorities are strengthening their anti-money laundering system to prevent new money laundering methods arising from the spread of virtual asset transactions.
On the 5th, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission held an 'AML (Anti-Money Laundering) Inspection Agency Council' meeting chaired by FIU Director Park Kwang to discuss institutional inspection plans according to the '2025 Supervision and Inspection Operation Direction.'
The AML Inspection Agency Council operates to ensure consistency in AML inspection work and to quickly share major risk factors related to money laundering.
In addition to Director Park, AML inspection representatives from 11 inspection agencies including the Financial Supervisory Service, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and Mutual Financial Central Associations attended this council meeting.
Participants discussed ▲strengthening responses to crimes affecting people's livelihoods ▲annual inspection operation plans for each institution.
The FIU plans to respond to new money laundering methods such as virtual account abuse and simple remittance misuse following the digitalization of financial transactions to prevent crimes affecting people's livelihoods.
The FIU announced plans to form and operate a 'Joint Response Team for Livelihood Crimes AML' together with the Financial Supervisory Service and financial institutions to proactively identify and improve AML vulnerabilities.
The response team will operate bimonthly and plans to analyze suspicious transaction patterns related to crimes that undermine social order, such as voice phishing targeting vulnerable groups, multi-level fraud, gambling, and drugs, by theme and disseminate precautions to the industry.
They also stated that inspection issues and target business sectors will be selected by comprehensively considering potential crime exposure, media reports, and industry requests, and will actively review new types of money laundering methods such as virtual account abuse and simple remittance misuse.
Subsequently, each inspection agency presented their major inspection results from last year and this year's AML inspection plans and key inspection points.
The Financial Supervisory Service said it is strengthening inspections of financial companies that have not received AML inspections for a long time, including conducting specialized inspections of some card companies and securities firms last year.
They also announced that this year, they plan to conduct inspections focusing on ▲financial companies with inadequate management practices according to FIU system implementation evaluation results or ▲business sectors where vulnerabilities have been discovered through the operation of the 'Joint Response Team for Livelihood Crimes AML.'
In addition, they stated plans to strengthen inspections on whether there is proper coordination between consumer protection and AML departments to enhance financial companies' ability to respond to livelihood crimes.
The Korea Customs Service reported that last year they conducted inspections on 77 companies, including habitual high-risk money exchangers as well as online and unmanned money exchange operators, and detected violations such as failure to report high-value cash transactions at 45 companies.
They added that this year, they plan to classify money exchangers into high-risk and low-risk groups for money laundering based on exchange volume and risk level, and conduct intensive inspections on high-risk groups.
In addition, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to conduct an enterprise-wide risk assessment of the National Credit Union Federation and all unit credit unions this year. The Korea Post plans to conduct thematic inspections focusing on the appropriateness of reasons for not reporting suspicious transactions and the thoroughness of customer due diligence obligations. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Office, and five mutual financial central associations also explained that they will continue to strive to enhance the effectiveness of inspection work by reflecting the 'Common Inspection Standards for AML System Adequacy' presented by the FIU in their checklists.
In his opening remarks, Director Park emphasized, "The anti-money laundering system serves as a breakwater that protects social order's trust and transparency by blocking the circulation and concealment of criminal funds. If the AML system does not function properly, livelihood crimes that threaten vulnerable groups, such as voice phishing and drug crimes, can spread more quickly and covertly."
He further stressed the importance of quickly reflecting money laundering risks in the AML system as new financial products and services utilizing digital technology emerge, and urged inspection agencies to thoroughly check the adequacy and sufficiency of AML systems during the inspection process and impose strict sanctions when necessary.
Reporter Park Chan-hwi pch8477@wowtv.co.kr
Uk Jin
wook9629@bloomingbit.ioH3LLO, World! I am Uk Jin.
