New rules aim to simplify banking for millions of Koreans living abroad

For the millions of Koreans living abroad, the simple act of managing a bank account in Korea has long been tethered to the slow, physical reality of the 20th century. To authorize a transaction through a representative, an overseas citizen had to visit an embassy, secure a physical seal and entrust the document to an international courier — a process fraught with delays and the lingering anxiety of a lost envelope. On Wednesday, that paper-bound era moved toward its conclusion. The Overseas Koreans Agency (OKA), the Financial Services Commission and the Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute announced a landmark agreement to launch the Digital Consular Authentication Financial Power of Attorney Service. The initiative, set to begin in July 2026, replaces the post office with the blockchain. Under the new protocol, once a citizen’s power of attorney is authenticated at an overseas mission, it is transformed into a digital document and transmitted instantly to a recipient bank in Korea. The use of a shared blockchain system allows financial institutions to verify th

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