South Korea’s BNK Busan Bank reportedly saw an employee of the foreign exchange team embezzle 1.48 billion Korean won (US$1.1 million) in customer funds into investing in bitcoin.
The unnamed employee supposedly stole the money several times from June 9 to July 25 this year by depositing funds customers received from abroad into a personal account belonging to his/her romantic partner.
The employee invested the misappropriated funds into bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
Accordingly, the BNK Busan Bank will take legal action against the perpetrator along with a self audit.
South Korea saw a number of cases related to bank embezzlement by employees, for example, one employee at Woori Bank reportedly stole nearly US$53.6 million (70 billion won) since 2012.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea is getting ready to prepare more constructive and stricter guidelines for the internal control system within the banks to prevent further such incidents.
An official from the financial sector said, “I understand the purpose of the regulation, but I hope that the focus should be on prevention rather than punishment.”
This team is specifically designed to improve internal control for the prevention of financial accidents within the banking sector and further discuss amendments to the governance law.
The FSS will aim to revise the internal control standards for executives such as CEOs. The law will be amended in a way that requires compliance with the actual internal control standards, the relevant executives and also the CEO will be subject to sanctions in the event of a financial accident.
The financial authorities will look forward to the management being forced to look more closely at the possibility of an accident, thus, the burden on the management is likely to rise.
Also read: SKT to Launch First Digital Wallet Service in South Korea
