South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has resumed its long-stalled review of GOPAX’s executive change report, a filing that effectively reviews Binance’s status as GOPAX’s major shareholder, officials and industry sources say, raising the prospect that the regulator could accept the report as early as the end of 2025.
Binance became GOPAX’s majority shareholder in February 2023 after acquiring roughly 67% of the exchange, and GOPAX submitted an executive change report to the FIU in March 2023.
The FIU put the filing on ice for about two and a half years amid concerns over anti-money-laundering (AML) implications and wider regulatory scrutiny of Binance following U.S. enforcement actions.
The review’s apparent restart comes after a series of legal developments in the United States that eased some regulatory headwinds for Binance. South Korea’s authorities appear to have taken those outcomes into account when reopening the GOPAX dossier, according to industry commentary.
That recalibration has prompted local officials to take a more positive stance on approving the executive changes.
Under current Korean law, there is no separate, formal suitability test for major shareholders of virtual-asset exchanges; instead, FIU scrutiny of executive filings has functionally served that gatekeeping role. Regulators previously delayed action because they viewed the Binance-GOPAX shift as carrying material AML and compliance risk for the domestic market.
If the FIU accepts GOPAX’s report, Binance could gain a clearer regulatory pathway to re-enter the South Korean market after having scaled back local operations in 2021. Any final approval would likely hinge on continued evidence of robust compliance controls, bank counterparties’ willingness to provide real-name payment accounts, and close coordination with Korean authorities.
Industry observers warn that, despite the positive momentum, the process still requires careful regulatory sign-offs before Binance can operate fully in Korea again.