South Korea’s financial services watchdog to supervise NFTs and metaverse closely.

One of South Korea’s financial services watchdogs has included digital assets and related developments such as the metaverse in its list of sectors. The watchdog will keep a closer eye on this coming year. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is keen to protect consumers at a time when the digital asset industry has seen a great boom in the country.

The watchdog announced that it would strengthen its supervision of NFTs and metaverse.

In its annual work plan released this week, the watchdog announced that it would strengthen its supervision of new trading assets, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a sector whose rapid surge in popularity has become quite a concern for regulators. It will also be seeking to enhance its supervision of the metaverse, yet another rapidly surging sector that has attracted the attention of some of the world’s biggest companies, not least Meta and Microsoft. The FSS will prepare countermeasures against factors that cause damage to consumers in this rapidly growing sector, it said in its annual work plan.

NFTs have shot in popularity in South Korea in recent times.

The latest development is a follow-up on the regulator’s announcement this month that it would heighten its verification of IPOs for businesses in emerging markets, including NFTs and the metaverse. NFTs have shot in popularity in South Korea in recent times. Despite this, the South Korean government has been adamant against recognizing them as financial assets. Later last year, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said that NFTs do not fall under virtual assets and would not be regulated in a similar manner. The FSC said that NFTs were classified as collectibles and not as payments or investments.