South Korea’s FSC announces two new initiatives to expand open banking
The Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea has set out two new policy initiatives designed to further develop and expand the availability of open banking services in the country.
Korea’s FSC to help expand open banking services
The first initiative will see an expansion in the scope of data available to open banking across both personal and business accounts. This will enable third parties using open banking to make multi-account inquiries simultaneously and in real time.
Including business account data in this scope specifically is intended to allow financial services companies to launch more tailored fund management products for their corporate clients.
The second initiative by the FSC is seeking to make open banking available in an offline capacity, such as through bank branches. This effort will mean that account holders will be able to use any bank or bank branch to action services like account inquiries and money transfers.
South Korea currently has two forms of infrastructure at play to support its open banking endeavours. This includes its open banking service which, launched in December 2019, the FSC says has “become an essential payment infrastructure” for fintechs in the country.
The second infrastructure, the API-based MyData service, provides a government-backed hub for consumers to take control over how their data is applied to open banking, and was first introduced in January 2022.
The FSC says it plans to draw up a roadmap for bringing the second generation of the MyData service to fruition, which will include a platform “where financial consumers can experience more diverse and convenient services in a safer manner”.
Kim Soyoung, vice chairman of the FSC, states that although the existing systems have “made accomplishments in improving convenience for financial consumers and enabling innovative financial services”, the two new initiatives will help continue this momentum, especially in granting offline access for the financially excluded.
