South Korea’s Financial Services Commission is stepping up work on the Digital Asset Framework Act after lawmakers pressed the government to keep the measure on track for passage this fall. At an Aug. 24 National Assembly meeting, FSC Chairman Kim Byoung-hwan said the regulator would accelerate consultations and “do its best” to meet the timetable lawmakers requested.

The bill is the second phase of South Korea’s broader virtual-asset rulebook. It is expected to address stablecoin issuance, virtual asset service providers, disclosures, internal controls and other areas of the domestic digital-asset market that were not fully covered by the country’s first round of crypto legislation.

Pressure to avoid another delay

The latest push came as lawmakers sought assurances that the government could submit its proposal in time for parliamentary action during the fall session. During the Aug. 24 hearing, a lawmaker argued that the remaining legislative work should now be completed and asked whether the process could move forward without slipping into 2027.

Kim responded that the FSC would move faster on consultations. His comments suggest the regulator is trying to shorten a process that has already been slowed by unresolved policy questions, particularly around stablecoins and the division of responsibilities among financial authorities.

Stablecoins remain the most contested part

Rules for stablecoins are expected to be a central feature of the legislation. Officials have spent months discussing who should be allowed to issue won-denominated tokens, how issuers should be supervised, and what reserve and licensing requirements should apply.

The Bank of Korea has supported a bank-led model, arguing that banks should take the leading role in the early stage of won stablecoin issuance because of possible effects on payments, monetary policy and financial stability. At the same time, regulators and lawmakers have differed over issuance eligibility, reserve oversight and which agencies should hold key powers, making stablecoin regulation one of the main reasons progress on the second-stage law has taken time.

Broader crypto services are also being folded in

The framework is being prepared alongside other regulatory changes affecting crypto businesses. South Korea has already revised its Foreign Exchange Transactions Act to place cross-border virtual-asset transfers under a formal regime. The amended law was promulgated on June 2 and is due to take effect in December after a six-month grace period.

Under that system, companies handling cross-border virtual-asset transfer services will need to register with the Ministry of Economy and Finance and report overseas transactions through the Bank of Korea’s foreign-exchange reporting system. Authorities are also reviewing whether fintech companies, in addition to registered exchanges and custodians, should be allowed to provide some of these services. Current VASP registration is handled by the Financial Intelligence Unit under the FSC, leaving the commission central to both existing compliance rules and the new framework legislation.

ETFs and tokenization add to the policy agenda

The government’s July digital-asset roadmap connected the framework bill to several other initiatives, including rules for tokenized government bonds, a legal structure for cross-border stablecoin transactions and work toward spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds. The FSC, Bank of Korea, Financial Supervisory Service and Korea Securities Depository jointly linked those efforts to central bank digital currency pilots and broader changes aimed at increasing the international use of the won.

Spot crypto ETFs remain under study, and a formal legal structure would be needed before locally offered spot Bitcoin ETFs could operate under South Korea’s securities market rules. Their inclusion in current policy planning shows that the second-stage legislation is intended to go beyond investor protection and unfair-trading rules and instead build a fuller framework for digital-asset businesses, products and services.

What comes next

For now, the immediate confirmed step is faster consultation work by the FSC as the government tries to deliver a proposal in time for the fall legislative window. Whether that schedule holds will depend on how quickly regulators and lawmakers can narrow differences over stablecoin issuance, supervision and related market rules.

Separate measures are also continuing on their own timetable, with the revised cross-border virtual-asset transfer regime set to begin in December. Together, those parallel efforts show South Korea trying to assemble a more complete digital-asset regulatory structure rather than relying only on the first-phase law already in place.

Source: crypto.news