ICONLOOP's Blockchain-Based Digital Identity Platform MyID Clears the Financial Services Commission's Regulatory Improvement Request for Innovative Financial Services
December 27, 2022, Seoul — ICONLOOP (CEO JH Kim), a leading Korean blockchain company, announced on the 27th that MyID, its blockchain-based digital identity platform, has cleared the Financial Services Commission's regulatory improvement request process for innovative financial services. It is the fourth case accepted since the Commission introduced the regulatory improvement request system in July 2021 to let innovative financial businesses continue providing services reliably after their designation period expires — and the first involving blockchain.
Since MyID was designated an innovative financial service under the Financial Services Commission's financial regulatory sandbox in June 2019, granting it a special exemption for simplifying non-face-to-face identity verification, ICONLOOP has actively pursued related business to build a more convenient and trustworthy blockchain DID (Decentralized Identifier) ecosystem.
In August 2020, ICONLOOP achieved Korea's first commercial deployment of DID in the financial sector by issuing Shinhan Bank financial identity verification based on MyID, and followed in August 2021 with NH NongHyup Bank financial identity verification — delivering a new customer experience in simplified non-face-to-face identity verification. The special exemption for MyID brought considerable innovation, in that it simplified the non-face-to-face identity verification process to the point where it could be completed as easily as ordinary identity authentication.
On the strength of these efforts, MyID was selected by the government in November 2020 as a leading achievement of the financial regulatory sandbox, and in December 2020 its innovative financial service designation was extended by two years — recognition of the service's value and innovation.
Clearing the regulatory improvement request carries considerable significance at this point, with the financial regulatory sandbox designation period nearing expiry. During the innovative financial service period, ICONLOOP provided and operated the service smoothly through substantive collaboration with leading financial companies, reaching some 103,000 uses, and in the process devoted itself on multiple fronts to making the service safer and more efficient — advancing its DID technology, building infrastructure, and accumulating expertise.
Based on a review of service operations to date, the stability of the financial market and order, and consumer protection, clearing the regulatory improvement request is expected to give MyID — which had carried a largely provisional status — significant momentum in establishing itself in the market as a full service. ICONLOOP plans to introduce a range of additional services using DID-based non-face-to-face identity verification and to expand the business in earnest.
"Beginning with clearing this regulatory improvement request for innovative financial services, we expect to bear fruit on the purpose and meaning of this innovative financial service, alongside more active distribution of verified certificates (VCs) through the infrastructure already built," said ICONLOOP CEO JH Kim. "The value of blockchain technology development recognized and supported within Korea's legal and institutional framework will become a foundation for standing shoulder to shoulder with global technology trends."
ICONLOOP is also pursuing new forms of business, having unveiled PARAMETA, its own blockchain framework bringing together the company's technology, this past June.
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