A recent surge in COVID-19 cases in South Korea has delayed the scheduled launch of comprehensive data service project, financial authorities said.
The original launch was slated for a launch next month (August), according to a report in Korea Herald.
The government-led MyData project, when launched, will allow licensed service providers to collect and analyse personal data scattered across the finance sector. The service providers must collect consumers’ consent before they can access their data, currently held separately by different financial institutions such as banks and credit card issuers.
Talent shortages
The policymaking Financial Services Commission (FSC) has recognised the need to further review and test-run the adoption of the application programming interface, or API, the report said.
It cited the lack of IT engineers for the project, as demand for engineers has risen with local businesses focused on developing online and mobile services, due to the pandemic.
Earlier, the FSC had mandated service providers to replace their current data scraping system with the API.
An FSC official said the e-commerce platforms and small businesses were “not quite ready” to adopt the API, and at the moment authorities’ goal is to launch the MyData service by the end of the year.
The decision to further review the MyData services came after a meeting of FSC officials.
The FSC will also review whether to include real-name bank receipts that show the customers’ wiring history and data. Commercial banks in South Kore have been against the idea, as it could lead to personal data leaks. The FSC explained they would have to receive customer consent first.
Besides technical issues, the authorities said they needed to run additional pilot tests on whether the API system could handle the related network and data traffic for customer protection.
Further, customers would be able to subscribe to multiple MyData services, but would receive warnings on data protection beforehand.
The license for MyData service has so far been granted to 28 local financial institutions and financial technology firms. The five traditional lenders that bagged the license are KB Kookmin, NH NongHyup, Shinhan, Woori and Standard Chartered Korea.
A total of 14 fintech firms, including Naver Financial and popular money transfer app Toss operator Viva Republica have received the license.
