S. Korean banks' revenues from crypto transaction fees surge 140%

K bank, NH Nonghyup Bank, and Shinhan Bank made a total of 16.9 billion won from the transaction fees of the four cryptocurrency exchanges -- Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit-- in the second quarter, despite heavy fluctuation in the cryptocurrency market.

The figure is more than double the 7 billion won recorded in the first quarter.

K bank raked in the most at 12 billion won in the second quarter from the partnership with Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

The figure is more than twice the 5.2 billion won fees it got in the first quarter and helped Korea’s first Internet-only bank post a net profit for the first time since its 2017 launching.

NH Nonghyup recorded 3.1 billion won in the second quarter after logging 1.3 billion won in the first quarter with Bithumb while earning 1.78 billion won during the two quarters from Coinone.

Shinhan Bank reported 175 million won in the first quarter and 343 million won in the next quarter from transactions with Korbit.

The number of accounts has increased five-fold and the balance of deposits has quadrupled, since the beginning of the year, according to Rep. Yun Chang-hyun of the People Power Party, who collected the data.

The deposits in real-name accounts used for cryptocurrency trading, which stood at 1.7 trillion won at the end of 2020, soared to 5.9 trillion won by the end-March and then to 7.08 trillion won as of the end of June.

The number of real-name accounts associated with virtual asset exchanges also showed a big jump from the 1.33 million accounts tallied as 2020 concluded, to the 3.79 million at the end of March and then to the 6.76 million accounts recorded as June wrapped up.