Bank Of Korea Plans Forex Law Amendment Covering Stablecoins As Payment Means

As Bitcoin Magazine first reported, the Bank of Korea will draft an amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act with the government before year-end, covering stablecoins as a means of payment.

The sequencing is the story. Korea’s crypto income tax is still scheduled for 1 January 2027, three postponements notwithstanding, yet the law that would define and license the market has not been introduced. Tax first, market structure later.

Forex law first, crypto law later

The amendment plan puts stablecoins where the central bank already owns the statute. The Foreign Exchange Transactions Act defines “means of payment” as an instrument whose cross-border movement must be reported, so dollar stablecoins held or moved by Korean users would sit in the same reporting regime as a bank wire, the regime whose capital controls produce the kimchi premium. This is a payments and capital-controls track, not a legal-tender decision, and no draft text or passage date exists.

Meanwhile, the issuance and licensing track sits under the pending Digital Asset Basic Act, still at the drafting stage. Korea is therefore building its stablecoin rulebook on two parallel tracks, and the one run by the central bank is moving first because the statute is already on the shelf.

That puts Korea on the opposite path from other markets. In the United States, stablecoins are handled through banking and payments law, as the final stablecoin rule from the OCC shows. Japan’s megabanks tested a yen stablecoin under an existing payments licence. Korea is regulating stablecoins through its existing exchange-control statute because the purpose-built law has yet to pass.

Tax politics in the background

Korea’s ruling Democratic Party has started to wobble: leader Kim Min-seok called for a “thorough final review” of the tax. The National Tax Service plans to finalise its draft tax notice by 30 October.

For traders, the near-term dates are what matter: the tax notice on 30 October, the forex amendment drafted by the end of the year, and the tax itself on 1 January 2027.