[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] Although the scale of gift certificates issued by the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation has reached the 9 trillion won level, there are concerns about loopholes in forgery and alteration management.
On the 23rd, according to data received by Democratic Party lawmaker Goyongjin, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee, the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation issued gift certificates worth 8.4321 trillion won from January to September this year. The total number of certificates issued was 334.88 million.
The issuance scale has significantly increased from 7.9462 trillion won (229.51 million certificates) in 2015 to 9.4668 trillion won (335.83 million certificates) last year.
This year, it is estimated to approach the 10 trillion won mark.
Most of these gift certificates use a method of covering serial numbers with silver foil to prevent forgery and alteration, but lawmaker Ko emphasized that this is insufficient to prevent new types of fraud.
In fact, a fraud case was recently uncovered by the police where the silver foil scratch on the gift certificates was peeled off, the serial numbers were registered online, and then the silver foil was reapplied before handing them over to sales outlets.
The reported damage from the crime amounted to approximately 50 million won.
Lawmaker Ko said, "It is especially dangerous when gift certificates with silver foil scratch functions are traded at places other than official sales outlets," adding, "Although gift certificates can be considered as good as cash, no one manages them, so system improvements are urgently needed."
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