National Assembly Craves a Leap into the 4th Industrial Revolution

In a conference at South Korea’s legislature, National Assembly (국회), lawmakers unanimously expressed a need for developments in the country’s financial infrastructure and supported improvements that would come from the 4th Industrial Revolution.

The conference held at the National Assembly Library in Seoul, “Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – Start of the Financial Revolution” was hosted by lawmaker Byungwook Kim. He discussed with government and finance officials the role of finance in the next industrial revolution.

Kim stated, “The role of finance is very important in improving the quality of life through smart cities and blockchain technology, which are a perfect manifestation of the level of development likely possible in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Legislation and policies have been developed for these in regard to finance and capital markets. It’s very exciting.”

Sungsoo Eun, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, stressed the importance of smart city finance using blockchain technology. Eun has engaged cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea directly and worked closely with National Assembly to develop advanced legislation regarding companies that transact with cryptocurrencies, demonstrating concerted effort to understand and properly regulate the industry.

Chairman Eun admitted that although smart cities receive a lot of attention in the way of discussions, action plans, and, most importantly, funding, serious discussions about the financial infrastructure were lacking.

“The core of smart cities is to build a hyperconnected society of things.” He said, “In such hyper-connected cities, the role of finance is altered by the use of blockchain and fintech to ease the capture and use of funds in the region.”

There was a prediction that 2020 could be the first year to see real benefits from the fourth industry. As global economic trends change, Korea could increasingly find itself behind others that have already laid the legislative cornerstones that will support their economy in the next decade.

Gapsoo Oh, chairman of the Korea Blockchain Association and chairman of the Global Finance Society commented that “finance will play an important role in creating new jobs. Governments must embrace the digitization of everything” and accordingly adopt the digitization of economy, as well.