Court Personal Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy Applications to Become Easier with Financial MyData Infrastructure

Financial Services Commission to Improve Court Application Process for Personal Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy
Using Financial MyData Infrastructure

The Financial Services Commission announced on October 22 that it held a task force (TF) meeting in Myeong-dong, Seoul, to discuss "simplifying personal rehabilitation and bankruptcy application procedures using MyData infrastructure."

This meeting was organized as a follow-up to concerns raised at a meeting in July aimed at resolving financial difficulties for small business owners. At that time, it was pointed out that ordinary citizens and small business owners, who are busy with their livelihoods and facing economic hardship, have to visit multiple financial institutions in person to obtain and submit debt certificates when applying for personal rehabilitation or bankruptcy.

On this day, the discussion focused on ways to simplify the submission of debt certificates during court applications for personal rehabilitation or bankruptcy by leveraging the financial MyData infrastructure. Currently, individuals must visit each creditor (such as financial companies) one by one to obtain the necessary debt certificates when applying to the court, which requires significant time and cost, and also delays the court's review process.

To address this, the first phase will allow applicants to exercise their right to request the transmission of personal credit information under the Credit Information Act when applying for personal rehabilitation or bankruptcy in court, enabling them to retrieve all their scattered debt information from various financial institutions at once.

Applicants will be able to view this information in the MyData Pocket App and download it as a PDF document to submit to the rehabilitation court and other relevant authorities. Furthermore, in the second phase, once the court's IT systems are developed, applicants will be able to have their debt information sent directly from creditor financial institutions to the court.

During the meeting, active discussions were also held on matters requiring action, including determining the scope of debt information needed for procedural improvements, amending the Credit Information Act to include debt information among the data that individuals can request to transmit, applying anti-tampering technology to documents downloaded from the MyData Pocket App, and recognizing these documents as having the same legal effect as existing debt certificates.

The Financial Services Commission explained that it will rapidly prepare follow-up measures such as legislative amendments and IT system development through the TF, aiming to launch the first phase (individual-to-court transmission service) in the first half of next year, and the second phase (institution-to-court transmission service) in 2027.