South Korea’s financial watchdog has ordered cryptocurrency exchange Korbit to pay a 2.73 billion won fine (about $1.9 million) after finding thousands of breaches of anti-money laundering rules and customer verification obligations, the Financial Services Commission said on Wednesday.
According to The Korea Times report published on December 31, the Financial Intelligence Unit, which operates under the FSC, said its sanctions review committee agreed to impose an institutional warning on Korbit and to discipline senior executives after a recent on-site inspection of the exchange.
The FIU found that Korbit, South Korea’s fourth-largest licensed cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, repeatedly failed to carry out required checks on clients and to restrict trading when those procedures were incomplete.
The inspection found about 22,000 cases where Korbit failed to carry out proper customer checks or apply required trading controls, regulators said. In many of those, the exchange accepted incomplete or unclear identification documents, kept accounts with missing or inaccurate address details, or allowed customers to keep trading even though verification under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information had not been completed.
The FIU also said Korbit processed 19 virtual asset transfers linked to three overseas trading platforms that had not been reported to South Korean authorities, in breach of rules barring transactions with unregistered virtual asset service providers.
Along with the institutional warning and financial penalty, the FIU issued a formal caution to Korbit’s chief executive and a reprimand to the officer in charge of regulatory reporting, underscoring management responsibility for compliance failures.
Under its procedures, the FIU will send Korbit a formal advance notice of the penalty and give the exchange more than ten days to submit its views before confirming the final amount and associated sanctions.
An FIU official said the authority intends to “take a tough stance on serious legal violations” and to strengthen anti-money laundering standards so that the domestic virtual asset market can grow while retaining public trust.
Mirae Asset’s Bid for Korbit Collides With Sanctions
Sanctions hit Korbit just two days after news of Mirae Asset’s takeover talks surfaced, adding regulatory pressure at a sensitive moment for the exchange.
Mirae Asset Group, one of South Korea’s largest financial conglomerates, is in advanced negotiations to acquire Korbit in a deal valued at between $70 million and $100 million, according to information disclosed by the company.
The talks involve Mirae and affiliates of existing major shareholders, including Nexon and SK Planet, and highlight how major traditional financial institutions are seeking regulated, compliance-focused entry points into digital assets rather than pursuing market share alone.
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