South Korea Financial Services Commission's Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) published its 2026 anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) policy agenda, setting out planned upgrades to Korea’s AML toolkit and supervision to better address serious livelihood infringement crimes, transborder crime risks and virtual asset-related threats. The agenda also aims to strengthen financial institutions’ AML accountability and align domestic requirements more closely with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards. Planned reforms include creating a basis under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information for KoFIU to freeze accounts suspected of involvement in certain serious crimes when requested by investigation authorities, and expanding prohibitions under the Act on Prohibition against the Financing of Terrorism to cover international criminal organisations. KoFIU also plans to strengthen screening and analysis through a permanent strategic analysis team, an AI-driven screening and analysis system, use of Chainalysis for virtual asset analysis and enhanced training. In the virtual asset sector, KoFIU will seek to extend the travel rule below the current KRW1 million threshold and impose record-keeping duties on recipient exchanges, restrict certain transfers involving personal wallets or overseas providers to low-risk cases where originator and beneficiary are the same entity, and require stablecoin issuers to meet AML obligations equivalent to financial companies with risk-based controls. For financial companies, the agenda includes requiring a designated executive officer to take responsibility for AML, consolidating scattered rules and sanction provisions, making semi-annual AML implementation evaluations mandatory, and establishing a basis for sanctions for false reporting or failure to report, alongside more risk-based inspection and sanction practices. Measures not requiring legal changes will be implemented quickly, while legislative proposals will be prepared for submission to the National Assembly in the first half of this year and subordinate regulations will be updated in the first half. KoFIU will also consult professional bodies on introducing FATF-recommended AML requirements for attorneys, certified public accountants and tax accountants, develop a beneficial ownership database using suspicious transaction information, and set up a cross-ministry joint response team ahead of the FATF mutual evaluation scheduled for March 2028.

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