Seoul hits foreign banks with new FX regulations

The government announced a set of tight measures on foreign exchange control Sunday, in a bid to ease heavy volatility on the local financial market.

The introduction of the new regulations will effectively give Korean banks some $18 billion of foreign banks’ business. The government also expects that tightened regulations on currency forward transactions will help stabilize the local currency market by curbing sudden cross-border capital flows and discouraging firms from making speculative bets on exchange rates.