The South Korean financial regulatory body is making the rounds again this week, this time with a plea for Korean lawmakers to speed up the process of drafting a regulatory bill concerning the cryptocurrency industry.

More specifically, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is the latest in a long series of high-profile individuals and agencies calling for increased regulation of the cryptocurrency sector.

This comes after the South Korean government recently decided to officially recognize cryptocurrency exchanges as regulated banks, something which Toshi Times previously reported on.

However, this decision also needs to be backed by proper regulation, and passing new regulations can be notoriously sluggish. This is why Hong Seong-ki, who heads the FSC’s Virtual Currency Response Team, has joined lawmakers in highlighting the need for new laws.

According to Hong, the need for laws relating to anti-money laundering norms and investor protection in the cryptocurrency industry are most urgently needed.

Hong also pointed out that there is a need for many different types of regulations, but that the FSC is ”trying to legislate the most urgent and important things first”, and later added that the bill should be passed as rapidly as possible.

Notably, Hong’s apparent concern over the lack of regulation comes a mere month after Coinrail revealed that a cyber attack had led to a loss of approximately $37 million worth of cryptocurrency.

Moreover, the bills which Hong referred to in his statements were a series of cryptocurrency regulatory bills that South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party’s Park Yong-jin submitted to the country’s National Assembly earlier in July.

However, things are currently looking up for these bills, as they have garnered support from both sides of the aisle in South Korea. Hopefully, this will allow for the bills to be passed in the National Assembly as soon as possible.

Hong specifically stated that he would like to see the bills passed before the end of 2018.

If signed into law, this would mean that South Korea would follow in Japan’s footsteps, where the Japanese Financial Services Agency supervises the nation’s cryptocurrency exchanges.

South Korean officials have previously talked about the need to regulate cryptocurrency exchange, specifically in order to heighten investor protection and improve anti-money laundering measures.

Potentially fast-tracking the necessary bills through South Korea’s National Assembly would be an undoubtedly positive thing, as the measures already have support from the entire political spectrum.

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