Financial Supervisory Agency summons top five cryptocurrency exchanges as ”deposit fee rate” competition flares up

On the 24th, News 1 reported that the Financial Supervisory Service of Korea has called an emergency meeting with the top five cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea. According to the report, the Financial Supervisory Service conducted an inspection of the method of calculating deposit usage fees that morning.
In order to implement this measure, the company convened a meeting of exchange representatives from Upbit, Bithumb, CoinOne, Cobit, and Copax. On the 19th, the usage fee rate for won-denominated deposits was revised in accordance with the enforcement of the Virtual Currency User Protection Act.
Competition between exchanges has begun to heat up in the process of calculating the rate. Upbit has revised its rate upward from 1.3% to 2.1%, Bithumb has raised it from 2.0% to 2.2%, and Cobit has raised it to 1.5%.
Bithumb then raised its usage rate to 2.5%. Bithumb then announced on the afternoon of the 23rd that it would raise its usage rate to an unprecedented 4.0%.
The interest rate would be 2.0% per year, which the banks would earn from their investments, plus 2.0% that Bithumb would voluntarily pay. This marked the end of the upward revision of the usage fee rates between exchanges.
Six hours after the announcement, Bithumb retracted the announcement of the upward revision of the usage fee rate, stating that "We have discovered matters that require additional consideration in order to comply with the Virtual Currency User Protection Act."
"As a result, we have decided to withdraw our announcement regarding the upward revision of deposit usage fees by 4% per year," the bank said.
According to Article 5 of the Regulations for Supervision of the Virtual Currency Business, virtual currency businesses must determine the calculation standards for deposit usage fees and payment methods.
In accordance with this, a payment procedure must be prepared and users must be paid a deposit usage fee. In this case, the deposit usage fee must be calculated reasonably taking into account investment income, incurred costs, etc.
A Financial Supervisory Service official said, "There seemed to be no consensus among the exchanges on what the appropriate level of deposit usage fees should be, in relation to the calculation standards for deposit usage fees set out in the supervision regulations."
"We have reconfirmed the calculation methodology."