블록체인 기술을 활용한 증권결제제도에 관한 법적 연구

Abstract

Recently, the Financial Services Authority reported that it is pursuing legislation to revitalize the "Security Token Offering (STO) market, which digitizes securities under the Capital Markets and Financial Investment Business Act (hereinafter referred to as the Capital Markets Act) using distributed ledger technology." Finally, the establishment of a system to apply blockchain technology to the securities settlement system is becoming visible. Major countries such as the United States and Japan have dualized the virtual asset regulatory system, and depending on whether the virtual asset is a financial investment product, the STO applies the existing securities law, and other virtual assets are regulated similarly to the capital market regulatory system. Currently, only investment products subject to regulatory sandboxes are considered STO in Korea, but institutional supplementation for STO utilization is required as the development of various investment products such as piecemeal investment and the expansion of the market. If STO is incorporated into the concept of securities under the current Capital Markets Act, STOs will be subject to entry regulations, issuance and disclosure regulations, and business conduct regulations for brokers, thereby solving the current investor protection problem. However, when incorporating STOs into the system, there are still issues to be solved under the current laws, the Electronic Securities Act, and the Capital Markets Act. Along with the definition of distributed ledger in the Electronic Securities Act, distributed ledger should be allowed as a register for electronic registration of token securities. Due to the nature of the blockchain, it is difficult to completely destroy the information described in the distributed ledger, so a solution must also be prepared to solve this problem. The current Capital Markets Act excludes investment contract securities from the scope of application, but when considering STOs, it is appropriate to include revenue securities and investment contract securities as subject to the same law. In addition, investors should be protected by allowing transactions by over-the-counter intermediaries and providing sufficient information to investors and existing investor protection obligations.