South Korea Bank Shinhan Decides To Launch The Country's First Institutional Crypto-Fiat Account

• -Shinhan, the South Korean commercial banking giant, started to be on the agenda by offering the first corporate crypto-fiat account to an institutional customer in the country.
• -ZDNet Korea announced on April 7 that it took action in conjunction with the bank’s decision to create an institutional fiat KRW account for crypto-asset transactions for Korbit, which it only trades as a crypto exchange.

With the deepening of Shinhan’s Korbit connections, his position on the agenda also emerges. It turns out that the bank is also in the process of acquiring part of the crypto trading platform, which is one of the first and largest in South Korea. According to rumors, it is planned to form an agreement to buy about 20% of the company. The bank also plans to provide a real-name service for Korbit. In this service, customer fiat on/off ramps will appear in the form of banking services.

• -According to the rules of South Korean law, companies have not had the opportunity to make direct investments in crypto assets through banks before. Therefore, banks and companies were unable to make progress in trading assets using their overseas subsidiaries. However, it was stated that thanks to a change in the legal scope that took place late last year, the necessary permissions have been granted for banks to provide such services.
• -With the Shinhan move, the institution will now provide the service of performing crypto purchases in KRW using its account without having to deal with situations such as Korbit’s cross-border workarounds.

Moves Continue To Be Made For Companies Outside The Crypto Space!

With the movements and developments that have taken place, it is also possible that the importance will increase for companies outside the crypto field. Like Tesla in the United States, South Korean firms are eagerly making progress in adding crypto assets to their balance sheets. However, without the services of private banks that facilitate KRW-crypto purchases, this is not easy to do. For this reason, without private banking services, it is also seen that organizations are reluctant to do this to the expert’s media organization.

• -Meanwhile, there is a program for the presidential handover committee to oversee the transfer of power between Moon Jae-in and President-elect Yoon Suk-Yeol. Media outlets are claiming that this scheme will grant regulatory permission to “two or three” crypto exchanges to reopen KRW pairings.

As previously revealed in the media, the vast majority of crypto exchanges in South Korea were on the agenda with the decision to discontinue fiat pairings in September last year. It has also emerged that all exchanges are not covered by the law, except those that offer verified fiat on/off ramps with commercial banks. This is why banks are reluctant to offer such services. Therefore, they also stated that they will not cause their partner exchanges to absorb money laundering and security risks.