Kookmin Bank excluded from ‘network separation exemption’; NongHyup and Industrial Bank selected

[Financial News] KB Kookmin Bank has been excluded from the financial authorities’ network separation regulatory easing program. Having also failed to make the cut in the second round after missing out in the first, it is the only one of the five major banks not to have been included among those covered. A recent customer information leak may have affected the review, but financial industry observers say the possibility of further selections remains open.
According to financial industry sources on the 6th, the Financial Services Commission recently finalized 13 financial firms for the second round of emergency easing of network separation regulations to allow the use of security-focused artificial intelligence (AI) and software as a service (SaaS), and notified them of the results. The results were initially scheduled to be announced on the 7th of last month, but the selection process was delayed by about a month as responding to a series of hacking incidents in the financial sector took priority.
The banks selected this round are NH NongHyup Bank and Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK). Both NongHyup Bank and Industrial Bank of Korea were left out of the first-round review held in June, but were included in the list in the second round. Shinhan Bank, Hana Bank, Woori Bank, and KakaoBank had been included in the first round.
The security incident that occurred in September may have played a role in Kookmin Bank being excluded from the selections in consecutive rounds, according to some interpretations. At the time, an external attack on Kookmin Bank’s mobile work-support system for employees led to the personal information of 2,091 customers being leaked. Shinhan Bank and Hana Bank also experienced hacking incidents, but had already been selected for the regulatory easing program in June.
A financial industry source said, “It seems to be a matter of sequencing. Kookmin Bank, too, seems likely to be selected in due course, but I don’t know the exact reason it was excluded this time.”
Electronic financial service providers, including Kakao Pay and Toss, were also included in the scope of this review for the first time.
Among insurers, Samsung Life Insurance, Kyobo Life Insurance, and Shinhan Life were newly selected, while Toss Securities was included among securities firms. Among card companies, KB Kookmin Card was granted an exemption from the regulations.

[email protected] Seo Ji-yoon Reporter