K Bank extends Upbit real-name account deal by a year to October 2027

K Bank will keep providing the won deposit and withdrawal accounts used by Upbit customers for another year. The South Korean internet-only bank said in a voluntary regulatory filing on Oct. 2 that it agreed to extend its real-name verified account service contract with Dunamu, the operator of crypto exchange Upbit. The current contract ends Oct. 5, and the new term runs from Oct. 6 to Oct. 5, 2027.

Filing came three days before expiry

A real-name verified account is a bank account whose holder has been confirmed to match the exchange user, and Korean exchanges need one to let customers buy and sell crypto with Korean won. K Bank said in the filing that, besides the account service, it also handles the deposit, safekeeping and management of virtual asset users' funds. To buy any of the 291 crypto assets on Upbit's Korean won market (as of the night of Oct. 5), users must deposit won through this account, and K Bank also holds the won balances users leave on the exchange.

"We have agreed with Dunamu to extend the existing partnership agreement, and having confirmed that the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) accepted Dunamu's virtual asset service provider (VASP) registration filing, we plan to continue providing the related services."

K Bank filing, Oct. 2

The contract renews automatically for one year at a time unless either party gives notice to terminate. No total contract value was set in advance, and K Bank's related revenue depends on actual service usage. K Bank added that the term and scope could change because of legal amendments, decisions by authorities or agreement between the parties.

A registration renewal that took 16 months

The decision date of Oct. 2 in the filing is the day K Bank confirmed that KoFIU had accepted Dunamu's VASP registration filing. Under Korea's Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, Dunamu must renew its VASP registration filing every three years, and its last renewal, entangled with sanction proceedings, was accepted only in December 2025, 16 months after it applied.

1. 2020K Bank and Upbit begin real-name account partnership
2. August 2024Dunamu files for operator registration renewal
3. Feb. 25, 2025KoFIU notifies sanctions including a three-month ban on new customers' crypto transfers
4. Nov. 6, 2025KoFIU imposes a 35.2 billion won fine
5. Dec. 23, 2025Renewal accepted, 16 months after filing
6. March 5, 2026K Bank lists on the KOSPI
7. April 9, 2026Seoul Administrative Court cancels the three-month partial business suspension
8. Oct. 2, 2026K Bank discloses contract extension

The 35.2 billion won penalty was the largest fine KoFIU had ever imposed on an exchange. KoFIU said it found about 8.6 million violations of the act, including about 5.3 million breaches of customer due diligence duties and about 3.3 million breaches of transaction restriction duties. The partial suspension centered on 44,948 transactions under 1 million won with unregistered overseas operators, and the court ruled in Dunamu's favor, saying there had been no specific standards for transactions of that size.

Upbit's share of deposits fell from 24% to 14%

According to Financial News, K Bank's total deposits stood at 26.6 trillion won at the end of the first half of this year, of which Upbit-linked deposits were 3.735 trillion won, or 14%. Invest Chosun reported in January that the share was about 24% at the end of the third quarter of 2025, at 7.4883 trillion won out of 30.4 trillion won. In its half-year report, K Bank said that besides the Upbit real-name account it runs "Upbit Lounge," which shows Upbit holdings and prices inside its app, and a crypto price service in partnership with Upbit.

Talk of Upbit widening its bank ties has also circulated. Invest Chosun reported that Upbit was internally reviewing a "one exchange, multiple banks" model. According to the Digital Times, Hana Financial Group bought 2.284 million Dunamu shares, a 6.55% stake, for 1.0033 trillion won in May. For now, the system in which each exchange opens real-name accounts with only one bank remains in place.

Bithumb and Coinone renewed for a year first

Real-name account contracts at major exchanges came up for expiry one after another in the second half of this year. Kakao Bank extended its contract with Coinone by one year to August 2027 in August. KB Kookmin Bank had shortened its renewal with Bithumb in February to six months instead of the usual year, then extended it by one year to September 2027 in late September, and KoFIU accepted the change report. According to Financial News, Kookmin Bank decided on the extension after checking Bithumb's anti-money laundering system in an on-site review in June. The one left is Korbit's contract with Shinhan Bank, which expires in December.

Upbit users will keep using their existing K Bank accounts. As of 10:30 p.m. KST on Oct. 5, bitcoin traded at 116.18 million won on Upbit with 24-hour trading value of about 967.5 billion won, 0.5% above the Binance price converted to won.