Major South Korean banks earned 2.2 billion won, around $2 million) last year in commission for providing virtual accounts to cryptocurrency investors, government data showed Thursday. Compared to the previous year, there was a sharp increase in earnings, from 61 million won made in commission from cryptocurrency trading in 2016 to 2.2 billion in 2017. according to statistics from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Industrial Bank of Korea ranks first among the banks with more gains from trading commissions, with 675 million won in revenue. , followed by NongHyup Bank at 654 million won. Shinhan Bank reported 621 million won, followed by Kookmin Bank with 151 million won, Korea Development Bank with 61 million won and Woori Bank with 59 million won.
The total balance of virtual currency held in accounts at the six banks was around 2.06 trillion won last year from 32.2 billion won the previous year.
The government has been striving to rein in the virtual currency frenzy in Asia’s fourth-largest economy while contemplating a bill to ban cryptocurrency exchanges.
Amid concerns over a bubble, the government last month banned the opening of new virtual accounts for cryptocurrency investors and required virtual currency traders to change their virtual accounts to real-name ones.
All cryptocurrencies, but especially XRP, enjoy great popularity in south korea, with the explosion in 2017.
South Korea is also one of the countries where the exchanges have the highest prices in the world, and for this reason they are have been the subject of controversial decisions taken by the site coinmarketcap, such as to remove the prices of the south korean exchanges that we told you a few days ago.
South Korea is home to one of the world’s biggest private bitcoin exchanges, with more than 2 million people estimated to own some of the best-known digital currency.
Despite a boom in cryptocurrency transactions, the exchanges go largely unregulated by authorities, as they are not recognized as financial products, and South Korea has no rules for protecting virtual currency investors.
