South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service plans to restrict general credit loans to active-duty soldiers within the year.

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service plans to finalize lending-industry standards within the year that would restrict general-purpose credit loans to active-duty soldiers, while leaving mortgage and emergency-loan rules unchanged. Loans to active-duty service members from the top 30 registered lenders surged from KRW 350 million at end-2022 to KRW 24.2 billion by end-2025. Regulators attribute the rise partly to imprudent spending on high-risk activities such as online gambling and crypto asset investment. The move matters because it targets a fast-growing pocket of household leverage tied to speculative crypto exposure. Watch for the finalized standards and whether other borrower groups face similar curbs.