English Disclosures to Become Mandatory Gradually from 2024

The Financial Services Commission announced on Jan. 24 that it would repeal the mandatory registration applied to foreign investors since 1992 and public disclosures in English would become mandatory next year in the case of every listed corporation with at least 10 trillion won in assets.

At present, the registration at the Financial Supervisory Service must precede securities investment in South Korea. It requires various documents, translation and notarization and has caused complaints on the part of foreign investors as the United States, Japan and Germany do not require such registration. The commission said that the registration would be replaced with legal entity identifiers and individual passport numbers and already given registration numbers would remain valid.

The mandatory English disclosure is applied in 2024 and 2025 to every listed company with at least 10 trillion won in assets and every listed company at least two trillion won in assets and more than 30 percent in foreign shareholdings. Those with a foreign ownership of less than 5 percent are not subject to the duty.

The commission said that its market monitoring would not be affected by these capital market accessibility enhancement measures including investment reporting-related deregulation. “Although foreigners’ domestic stock investment does not have to be immediately reported any longer and securities companies will be more responsible for detailed management, investment details can be checked in real time via the Korea Exchange and data and information can be directly collected from securities companies if necessary,” it said.