South Korea's financial regulator has proposed rules for tokenized securities — including capital requirements for issuers, new over-the-counter (OTC) trading licenses, and limits on retail investment — as the country's regulatory framework for the asset class prepares to take effect in February 2027.

According to an official announcement published by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), the proposed regulations would establish standards for both the issuance and the trading of tokenized securities. The changes would allow stocks, bonds, funds, and certain fractional investment securities to be issued and circulated in tokenized form, with distributed ledgers formally recognized as infrastructure for those activities. The draft rules take the initiative set out in September's roadmap into the detailed rulemaking stage.

Requirements for issuers

The proposal introduces requirements for companies involved in issuing and managing tokenized securities. Under the draft rules, companies that issue tokenized securities while directly managing customer accounts would need to maintain equity capital of at least 4 billion Korean won ($2.8 million). Such firms would also be required to maintain dedicated compliance and technology staff. Capital minimums and staffing mandates of this kind are standard regulatory tools for ensuring that operators can meet customer-facing and compliance obligations.

New OTC license and retail limits

Separately, planned revisions to the capital markets regulations would create an additional over-the-counter exchange license covering debt securities. The same revisions would cap retail investors at 100 million won ($70,000) in annual net purchases on each OTC exchange — a ceiling that applies per venue, tying retail access to OTC debt trading to a fixed annual limit.

Timeline

The proposal builds on a three-phase roadmap unveiled on Sept. 4 for bringing the issuance and trading of securities onto distributed-ledger infrastructure.

Under the proposed schedule, the rules will undergo a public consultation from Friday to Nov. 11, before an approval process begins. The consultation period gives market participants and the public a window to submit feedback before the framework advances. The proposed regulations are scheduled to take effect on Feb. 4, 2027, alongside amendments recognizing distributed ledgers as infrastructure for issuing and circulating securities — meaning the operational rules and the legal recognition of tokenized issuance would come into force together.

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