금융회사 인허가 매뉴얼 — (3) 금융투자 · 제1권 인가 — English Edition
A foreign broker wants to open a Seoul branch. A global asset manager is deciding whether it needs a trust licence as well as a collective investment one. A trading venue wants to know what an alternative trading system authorization actually requires. The answers are not in the statute — they are in the working manual the Financial Supervisory Service and applicants use, which sets out for each licence the procedure, the criteria the regulator actually applies, how to complete the application and what to attach, and what the Financial Services Commission has decided before. It has never been published in English. This is Volume I.
The Korean original runs to 471 pages and covers the whole of financial investment licensing. It is published here in three volumes, each complete in itself and each free:
Volume I — Authorization — this volume, 176 pages
Volume III — Investment Crowdfunding and Changes of Major Shareholder — 102 pages
| Part | Subject |
|---|---|
| Part 1 | Authorization of investment trading, investment brokerage, collective investment and trust business — overview, the business units, the review criteria and review method, previous determinations, authoritative interpretations, reference matters |
| Annexes 1–4 | Application forms; the business plan summary form; confirmation forms for executive officers, applicants and major shareholders; and the statutes and regulations behind the review requirements |
| Part 2 | Authorization of an alternative trading system (ATS), and the related statutes and regulations |
This volume is translated in full — every requirement, every table, every form, every attachment list and every copy count, and the statutes and regulations the manual reproduces behind them.
Terminology follows the official English translations of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act and the Act on Corporate Governance of Financial Companies published by the Korea Law Translation Center, wherever they exist. Four Korean words that careless English collapses into one are kept apart throughout: 인가 is authorization, 등록 is registration, 승인 is approval and 허가 is permission. The attached Tables of the Regulation on Financial Investment Business, which carry the minimum capital, personnel and major shareholder thresholds, have no official English translation of any kind; they are translated here in full.
Where the official English of two Acts collides — the Act on Corporate Governance of Financial Companies renders 대주주 “large shareholder” and 주요주주 “major shareholder” — this edition follows the FSCMA usage (major, largest, principal) consistently across all three volumes, and a note at the front explains the choice. Where the Korean original itself is inconsistent or carries a typographical error, it is reproduced as printed and a translator’s note says so.
The manual is explanatory and, as its own front matter states, has no binding force. Where it differs from the Acts, their Enforcement Decrees or the supervisory regulations, those instruments govern. Licensing requirements, thresholds and forms change, and a manual of this kind is revised periodically; this edition reflects the version dated December 2025.
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