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Progress beyond the initial rollout will depend partly on market adoption and the outcome of pending stablecoin legislation.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission unveiled a phased roadmap on September 4 for converting stocks, bonds and investment funds into blockchain-based tokens, with the earliest phase due to start in February 2027 once an amendment to the Electronic Registration Act takes effect.
The plan links the country’s securities market to a stablecoin payment system that regulators want built by the time the rollout reaches its final stage.
Seoul Lays Out a Three-Step Timeline
The FSC’s roadmap, presented during the third private-public consultative meeting on securities tokenization, breaks the transition into three stages.
Phase one starts in February 2027 and covers privately pooled money market funds and bonds reserved for institutional investors, unlisted stocks held through trust structures, and publicly offered fractional investment securities.
Phase two widens the pool to every type of publicly offered security. But the third phase is the more ambitious one: an on-chain payments system tied to stablecoins, though the FSC says the pace of phases two and three depends on how the first rollout goes, how fast the market adapts, and where pending stablecoin legislation ends up.
The commission also published model standards for fractional investment, capping individual subscriptions at whichever is smaller between 30 million won ($22,200) and 5% of an issuance, and requiring issuers to reserve a minimum retail allocation.
Trading tokenized securities over the counter won’t need a separate license, though firms must consult the Financial Supervisory Service first, and retail investors face an annual cap of 100 million won ($74,000) in net purchases per exchange.
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