The South Korea Financial Services Commission’s Korea Financial Intelligence Unit has published a government-wide strategy to strengthen the country’s anti-money laundering, counterterrorist financing and counter-proliferation financing framework through five priorities and 12 implementation tasks. The strategy expands the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit’s 2026 policy agenda into a broader national program and is intended to address changing risks involving virtual assets, cash and cross-border organized crime while preparing for the Financial Action Task Force mutual evaluation beginning in March 2028. The highest-priority reforms will establish beneficial ownership information systems for legal persons and trusts and phase in anti-money laundering obligations for designated nonfinancial businesses and professions, including lawyers, accountants, tax advisers, real estate agents and precious metal dealers. Other measures will strengthen suspicious transaction analysis through additional specialists, artificial intelligence and virtual asset tracing, introduce more risk-based supervision and sanctions for financial companies, and expand public-private information sharing. The government also plans a suspicious transaction suspension mechanism, independent and extended confiscation arrangements, stronger targeted financial sanctions, and risk-based monitoring of nonprofit organizations. A government task force formed in March will develop agency-level measures and monitor implementation through eight working groups. The program will focus not only on aligning laws and regulations with FATF standards but also on demonstrating that the framework works effectively in practice during the approximately 14-month evaluation.

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