FIU Contemplates 'Upbit Fine Scale'... 'Industry Impact Inevitable' [Crypto Briefing]

[Financial News] The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission is deliberating without having determined the level of fines for Dunamu, which operates the virtual asset exchange Upbit. Meanwhile, academia has predicted that fines ranging from at least 10 billion won to a maximum of 100 billion won will be imposed.
According to the virtual asset industry on the 29th, the FIU discussed the scale of fines for Dunamu, which received a partial business suspension for three months due to violations of the Specific Financial Information Act, on the 17th. Previously, in February, the FIU had issued a partial business suspension to Upbit, citing violations of the Specific Financial Information Act, such as trading with unregistered overseas virtual asset operators or violating customer verification (KYC) obligations. Although the scale of the fines was to be finalized through the Sanctions Review Committee's discussions, the announcement of the discussion results has been delayed, keeping competitors on high alert. Until now, there have been no related sanctions for virtual asset transactions under 1 million won. Moreover, while large exchanges with strong capital can bear a certain scale of fines, there are concerns that it could be a direct hit to small and medium-sized exchanges.
An industry official said, "There was a perception that the 'travel rule' only applied to transactions over 1 million won, but suddenly sanctions were imposed without any prior notice," adding, "Since it could sufficiently apply to other exchanges as well as Dunamu, we are watching the sanctions review discussions." He continued, "Since small and medium-sized exchanges do not have much operating profit, receiving large fines could make it difficult for them to survive."
Meanwhile, experts predict that fines will be imposed differently depending on the details of Dunamu's legal violations. Jeong Ji-yeol, a professor at Hanyang University who served as the director of the Korea Anti-Money Laundering Research Institute, said, "Since it is an administrative disposition, it will not be imposed arithmetically like the judiciary. The global trend is also like that," adding, "If the legal violation is related to crimes in countries like North Korea or Iran, it could be around 100 billion won, otherwise, it could be around 10 billion won after going through the first, second, and third trials."
Meanwhile, Dunamu has filed an administrative lawsuit against the partial business suspension. They also filed for a stay of execution to suspend the effect of the disposition, which was granted by the court at the end of March, so the partial business suspension is currently not being enforced.
Dunamu argues that raising issues with transactions under 1 million won, which have not traditionally been subject to the 'travel rule', is excessive. The travel rule is a system that forces the sharing of sender and receiver information during fund transfers between virtual asset operators and has been applied only to transactions over 1 million won.

yimsh0214@fnnews.com Sanghyuk Lim, Reporter