South Korea Tightens AML Checks on Overseas Crypto Transfers

The South Korean government has tightened anti-money laundering (AML) checks on overseas cryptocurrency transfers. The country's State Council approved amendments to the enforcement decree of the Special Financial Information Act, which requires domestic crypto exchanges to screen transfers of 10 million won ($6,800) or more sent to overseas exchanges or personal wallets.

Under the amended decree, exchanges must run any transfer at or above this threshold through their own AML monitoring systems for suspicious transactions rather than clearing it automatically. Exchanges also have to differentiate how much they will allow to move to a given overseas platform based on that platform's risk profile.

The finalized rule differs from what regulators proposed in March, which would have placed every overseas transfer of ₩10 million or more into the mandatory suspicious-transaction reporting process. The Aug. 11 framework replaces this automatic reporting trigger with enhanced AML monitoring by domestic exchanges.

The Digital Asset eXchange Alliance had opposed the earlier proposal, citing that it would push their annual suspicious-transaction reports from about 63,000 to roughly 5.4 million, an increase they said would overwhelm the FIU's own processing capacity.