In this article, we introduce the goals and tasks of the Presidential Transition Committee relating to digital finance, digital economy, and the media, prior to the inauguration of the 20th administration in May 2022.

The 110 National Agenda of the Yoon Suk-yeol Government (the “National Agenda”) include a number of measures to secure competitiveness in each industry and solutions to relevant public welfare issues.  Ministries such as the Personal Information Protection Commission, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Financial Services Commission will lead the execution of relevant measures.

Such topics include innovation in digital finance and improvement of regulatory system, enhancement of competitiveness through realization of a digital economy, support for media development and protection of users, etc.  The recently released white paper further details the objectives and projects pertaining to each topic.

The new administration aims to strengthen the autonomy and competitiveness of the financial sector in order to protect financial consumers by reducing arbitrary and discretionary power in financial administration.  Several measures, such as reorganizing regulatory systems, reforming inspection and sanction systems, improving financial data collection and utilization infrastructure, and improving financial security regulations have been presented.  At the same time, there have been announcements on the enactment of the Framework Act on Digital Assets, establishing a regulatory system classifying securities and non-securities, and disclosing and inspecting easy payment fees to ensure responsible growth of the virtual asset market and to create a safe investment environment.

In order to become a digital economy hegemon, the government seeks to strengthen the core foundations of financial innovation, such as AI, data, and cloud services, and foster new industries such as metaverse and digital platforms.  In the public sector, there are plans to (i) use commercial cloud services and commercial software, (ii) create a software as a service (“SaaS”)-focused ecosystem, (iii) enact the Metaverse Special Act and revitalize related ecosystems, and (iv) secure digital stability in networks and software along with the completion of the national 5G network.

In order to innovate media regulations, the government plans on improving various regulations related to broadcasting businesses such as licenses, permits, ownership, concurrent operation, advertising and programming, and introducing its own rating system to strengthen global competitiveness of Over-the-Top (“OTT”) services.  In addition, we expect there to be a focus on enhancing the reliability and transparency of article and video exposure in order to solve the issue of confirmation biases in media platform algorithms, and laying the institutional framework for user protection in rising industries such as digital platforms, metaverse and mobility.

Putting the National Agenda of the new administration into practice will set an important milestone for the future of each ministry’s focus projects.  This is especially true since keywords, such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the hyper-connected society, are considered to be main issues regarding digital innovation and user protection.  The government’s policies and plans may result in flexible changes to legal and regulatory requirements for the relevant industries, so we recommend continuous monitoring and preparation based on these policies and plans.

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