On November 10, 2026, a senior official at South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said that if stablecoins are used as electronic payment instruments, bringing them under the Electronic Financial Transactions Act would be hard to avoid. The comments were made the same day at a discussion in Yeouido, Seoul, and were reported by Yonhap News Agency, according to BlockBeats.
Shim Eun-seop (沈恩燮), director of the FSS Electronic Finance Inspection Bureau, tied that view to fairness with existing electronic payment methods, user protection, and the stability of payment and settlement. He said that if the same payment-and-settlement transaction were governed by different laws only because the payment tool differed, the result could be regulatory arbitrage and confusion.
He argued for a small-scale license under the Act for businesses that provide stablecoin payment and settlement. He also said those businesses should face duties on stability safeguards, drafting and filing terms, protecting top-up funds and settlement funds, protecting transaction information, and handling disputes. He said he fully agreed that anti-money-laundering obligations should be applied separately to issuers, wallet providers, and payment-service providers.
Kim Bo-il (金宝一), head of the Bank of Korea’s virtual-asset group, restated a bank-first sequence for issuance. He said stablecoin issuance should start with banks at the center, and that who may issue should be widened only after it is clear the technology can connect effectively with existing systems and supervision. He described that order as a compromise, made without an optimal plan, meant to reduce the chance that stablecoins are used to sidestep regulation.
Kim also said authorities should look carefully at how far Korea’s national payment system depends on global private networks, and at how links and interoperability with existing systems should be designed.
Yonhap said that in the government bill for a Digital Asset Basic Act, expected to be published within the month, stablecoin issuers were expected to be mainly bank-centered consortia. That was presented as an expectation, not as enacted law.
Other speakers favored a wider set of participants. Hwang Seok-jin (黄锡镇), a professor at Dongguk University, suggested that rather than an issuance structure led by one industry, firms that meet set qualification and responsibility requirements should be allowed to take part. Lee Dong-cheol (李东哲), chairman of the Credit Finance Association, said he hoped more parts of the financial industry could join a won-stablecoin issuance consortium and use their respective strengths. Namgung Cheol (南宫卨) of Shinhan Card said overseas stablecoin payment examples generally run over the Visa network, and that if Korea wants early use in payments it may also need to use card-network infrastructure to some extent.
The discussion was hosted by the Democratic Party of Korea’s artificial-intelligence, finance and economy promotion group. Lawmakers at the meeting expected the government bill to appear within the month.
The remarks concern proposed legal treatment and who might be allowed to issue. They do not set redemption terms, describe reserves, or show that a won stablecoin would hold a market price or be redeemable on demand. Names above follow the Chinese-language BlockBeats report of the Yonhap account.
Original report: BlockBeats, November 10, 2026, citing Yonhap News Agency. The BlockBeats item was published at 16:49 on November 10, 2026 (UTC+8).
