South Korea

Regulations

• Can financial institutions use AWS?

  Yes. Financial institutions in South Korea are permitted to use cloud services, provided that they comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements, such as those described below. 

• Who are the financial regulators?

  The Financial Services Commission (FSC) is a central government body responsible for financial policy and financial supervision of financial institutions in South Korea such as banks, insurance companies, mutual savings banks, trust business entities, investment traders or brokers, investment business entities, investment advisory business entities, and financial holding companies.

  The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is South Korea’s fully integrated supervisory authority under the Act on the Establishment of Financial Supervisory Organizations. It is a specially legislated quasi-government supervisory authority and charged with financial supervision across the entire financial sector.

  The FSC assumes the primary responsibility for rulemaking and licensing while the FSS principally conducts prudential supervision, capital market supervision, consumer protection, and other oversight and enforcement activities as delegated or charged by the FSC.
  

• What regulations apply to financial institutions using AWS?

  Financial Institutions in South Korea may be subject to a number of different legal and regulatory requirements when they use cloud services.

  Legislation issued by the FSC together with relevant guidelines, provide a framework for financial institutions in South Korea when they are planning to use cloud services. Key legislation and guidelines include the following:

  • Electronic Financial Transaction Act (EFTA)

  • Regulation on Supervision on Electronic Financial Transactions (RSEFT)

  • Guideline on the Use of Cloud Computing Services in Financial Industry (2019) [no online source available]

  The above framework covers a variety of contractual and operational areas, including due diligence, risk management, business continuity, and monitoring and oversight.

  Customers that have questions about the applicable regulations, and how these may apply to their use of AWS services, can reach out to their account representative.

  Regulations are changing rapidly in this space, and AWS is working to help customers proactively respond to new rules and guidelines. AWS encourages its financial institutions customers to obtain appropriate advice on their compliance with all regulatory and legal requirements that are relevant to their business, including other local regulations, guidelines and laws.
  

• Key considerations for financial institutions using AWS

  AWS is committed to offering customers a strong compliance framework and advanced tools and security measures that customers can use to evaluate meet, and demonstrate compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

  Financial institutions who are using or planning to use AWS services can take the following steps to better understand their compliance needs:

  1. Consider the purpose of the workload(s) under consideration and the relevant categories of data in order to anticipate which legal and regulatory requirements may apply.

  2. Assess the criticality of the relevant workload(s) in light of local requirements and procure the relevant approvals or issue the appropriate notice. For example, under the Guideline on the Use of Cloud Computing Services in Financial Industry (2019) financial institutions must report to the FSS workloads that they have self-assessed as “highly important.”
  

  3. Review the AWS Shared Responsibility Model and map AWS responsibilities and customer responsibilities according to each AWS service that will be used. Customers can also use AWS Artifact to access AWS’s audit reports and conduct their assessment of the control responsibilities.

  4. Customers who have further questions about how AWS services can enable their security and compliance needs, or who would like more information, can contact their account representative.

• Key data privacy and protection considerations for financial institutions using AWS

  Financial institutions in South Korea using AWS should also consider applicable privacy requirements, including the South Korea Personal Information Protection Act. The AWS whitepaper Using AWS in the Context of Common Privacy and Data Protection Considerations provides useful information to customers using AWS cloud services to store or process personal data.
  

  If customers process or are planning to process the personal data of data subjects in the European Union (EU), they should visit AWS’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Center. More information on these requirements is included in Navigating GDPR Compliance on AWS.
  

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