[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] The Financial Services Commission (FSC) has identified a total of 14 disguised accounts in a full-scale investigation of virtual asset operators' collection accounts and plans to take measures such as suspending transactions.
On the 28th, the FSC announced that, based on an investigation of 3,503 financial institutions across four sectors?banks, savings banks, credit unions, and post offices?that can issue deposit and withdrawal accounts, there are 94 collection accounts held by 79 virtual asset operators. Among these, 14 were found to be disguised accounts.
A collection account refers to a corporate account used by virtual asset operators who have not been issued real-name verification accounts by commercial banks to receive Korean won deposits. The method involves individuals depositing funds with an identification number attached to a single corporate account of the exchange. Virtual asset investors should exercise special caution when the virtual asset exchange name and the collection account name differ, as this indicates a high possibility of using illegal disguised accounts.
According to the FSC, many collection accounts are operated concurrently as business accounts, and some collection and withdrawal accounts are separately operated at different banks. In particular, some collection and withdrawal transactions were conducted using virtual accounts of payment gateway (PG) companies and firm banking services. The FSC explained that PG companies’ virtual account services make it difficult to distinguish and manage virtual asset users’ transactions, and firm banking services allow collection and withdrawal to proceed in situations where the account-opening bank and the service-providing bank find it difficult to recognize the transactions.
Notably, some virtual asset operators repeatedly opened and closed disguised accounts by switching financial institutions after transaction suspensions on disguised accounts. It was also found that illegal disguised accounts were operated in various forms, including under the names of disguised affiliates, law firms, executives and employees, and indirect collection accounts.
The FSC plans to verify the discovered disguised accounts and proceed with measures such as suspending transactions. For collection accounts showing signs of suspicious transactions such as money laundering, customer identification will be strengthened regarding transaction purposes. If customer identification is not possible or if the risk is judged to be particularly high, transaction suspension will also be pursued.
Additionally, the FSC will strengthen cautionary measures for financial companies to prevent collection and withdrawal of virtual assets through PG companies’ virtual accounts and firm banking services without the knowledge of the financial institutions. PG companies have been instructed to verify whether the service users are virtual asset operators and to conduct risk assessments when providing virtual account services and firm banking services.
An FSC official stated, "We will continuously strengthen monitoring of disguised accounts and provide information on discovered disguised accounts to the prosecution and police for reference in investigations."
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