The Financial Services Commission promulgated a revision to the Act on Electronic Financial Transactions (“the Act” hereinafter) on December 16. The revised law requires payment gateway (PG) services to separately manage the total amount (100 percent) of unsettled funds externally and establishes provisions for more effective management and supervision over PG services.

Under the revised Act, PG services will be obligated to externally manage unsettled funds in their entirety for their sellers and users. The revised Act also increases the capital requirements for PG services in accordance with the volume of quarterly payments transactions. In this regard, PG services that have more than KRW30 billion in quarterly payments transactions will be newly required to meet the minimum capital requirement of KRW2 billion. In addition, PG services will be required to re-register the status of major shareholder when there is any change in the status of major shareholder to help prevent disqualified entities from entering the market

Additionally, the revised Act establishes a legislative ground for the authorities to issue a corrective order, suspend the operation of business, and revoke business registration for noncompliance, while making PG services subject to the duty of disclosure of information to ensure protection of users.

Since these administrative sanctions will take effect immediately from the day of promulgation, the financial authorities will provide adequate information to the industry to encourage compliance.

The duty to externally manage unsettled funds and the increased capital requirement will take effect from December 17, 2026 after preparing subordinate statutes to provide further details. However, to facilitate a seamless adjustment in the industry, the authorities will provide relevant guidelines on the external management of unsettled funds for PG services from January next year.

* Please refer to the attached PDF for details.