FSC moves to encourage web banking

The government has decided to ease its real-name financial transaction system to encourage the fintech industry and Internet banking.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said Friday it has started developing detailed deregulatory measures to ease the self-identification rule at the request of bank CEOs.

The eased rule will apply to insurers and securities firms, as well as banks.

The FSC plans to implement the changes in the second half of the year.

The system is expected to allow consumers to submit images of state-recognized IDs like resident registration cards, driver’s licenses and passports to a teller using email or show the IDs via video calls.

Currently, all kinds of electronic financial transactions are allowed for people who already have bank accounts.

People have to open an account before using the Internet for banking because of the real-name financial transaction regulation implemented in the early 1990s to prevent borrowed-named accounts.

“We aim to allow people to do financial transactions without visiting a bank by technically making this step [self-identification through showing personalized security code] possible electronically by June,” said Lee Yoon-su, head of the banking policy department at the FSC.

Cutting-edge IT enabled biometric identification such as fingerprint, voice, face or iris recognition, are in use in China and some European countries.

BY KIM JI-YOON [kim.jiyoon@joongang.co.kr]