On November 10, 2026, Shim Eun-seop, director of the Electronic Finance Inspection Bureau at South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, spoke at a discussion at the Financial Investment Education Institute in Yeouido, Seoul. According to Yonhap News Agency, he said that if stablecoins were used as an electronic means of payment, applying the Electronic Financial Transactions Act would be unavoidable. He grounded that view in fairness with electronic payment methods already in use, user protection, and the stability of payment and settlement.
Shim said that putting the same payment-and-settlement transaction under different laws according to the payment method could create confusion through regulatory arbitrage. He suggested a small-amount licensing regime under the Act, with obligations covering stability safeguards, the drafting and filing of terms, protection of top-up funds and settlement funds, protection of transaction information, and dispute handling.
Kim Bo-il, head of the Bank of Korea’s virtual-asset group, said policymakers need to consider how far a national payment system should depend on global private networks. He described as a compromise his earlier position that stablecoin issuance should begin with banks at the center and that eligibility to issue should be widened only after technical verification.
The same report said the government draft of the Basic Act on Digital Assets, expected to be released later in November 2026, was anticipated to cast stablecoin issuers as bank-led consortia. These are reported official comments on legal coverage and issuance structure; the account does not treat them as a finding that any stablecoin is insured, guaranteed, or redeemable on fixed terms.
Original article, published November 10, 2026 at 16:43 (UTC+8): TechFlow Post, citing Yonhap News Agency.
