Intelligence Brief
South Korea has approved an anti-money-laundering rule that extends information-sharing requirements to every virtual-asset transfer between registered domestic service providers. The previous threshold was ₩1 million.
Receiving platforms will also carry a direct compliance obligation. If required sender or recipient information is missing, they must request it or reject the transfer. The rules add risk-based controls for transfers involving overseas exchanges and personal wallets, where South Korean authorities have less visibility over the counterparty.
The Financial Services Commission said roughly 60% of domestic provider-to-provider transfers by transaction count were below ₩1 million during the second half of 2025. Removing the threshold closes the simplest avoidance method: breaking a larger transfer into smaller transactions that sit outside the reporting rule.
Korea’s cabinet approved a major overhaul to VASP licensing and AML rules. Big changes: expanded shareholder review, a new 200% debt-ratio cap, and the ₩1M travel rule threshold is gone entirely, now applies to all transfers.
Major-shareholder review now catches anyone who… pic.twitter.com/iD4socclZ2
— Tony Chung (@jayc_BM) August 11, 2026
Strategic Assessment
The immediate winners are compliance vendors, regulated exchanges with mature monitoring systems and authorities seeking fuller transaction records. Smaller providers face the harder adjustment. Every transfer now creates a data-handling obligation, increasing screening volume and the cost of resolving incomplete counterparty information.
Users should expect more friction around personal wallets and overseas platforms. That does not amount to a blanket ban. The treatment depends on risk, ownership checks and whether the destination can satisfy the required controls. High-risk counterparties may be restricted, while transfers with clearer provenance should remain possible.
The policy also shifts responsibility towards receiving exchanges. A platform can no longer rely solely on the sender to provide usable information. That creates operational exposure when systems disagree, customer details are incomplete or foreign providers cannot exchange data in the required format.
