You’ve got your ARC, your bank account, but one last piece of this puzzle is still missing: as a foreigner in South Korea, you’ll need, like the locals, a joint certificate.

Designed as a government-accredited digital signature for financial transactions and government related online services, you will need yours in particular for tax settlements and insurance subscriptions. I can hear it from here: as if it wasn’t enough to go through the process of getting your ARC and a bank account (all that in your best and broken Korean), another task?!

Well, rest assured, freshly arrived foreign on the Land of the Morning Calm! It is way easier to get this e-document nowadays than it was before. Let’s see your options together.

If Hana Bank was your fist choice, good! If it wasn’t, maybe you’ll have a change of heart.

 

Already known as the most foreign-friendly bank in South Korea, with its English support, reduced overseas transfer fees or their mobile app services in 16 languages, Hana Bank took the next big step toward their foreign clients in 2024 when they added the “Hana Certification” system, allowing them to get their own joint certificate online, directly on their app. Free to use for a year (don’t forget to renew it 30 days before its validity period expires) and linked to your bank app, the document is obtainable with the same documents you will need for a request directly made in person at your bank: your ARC, a Korean phone number and your passport. All this process is free of charge.

If all this seems too complicated, you can choose to go with a Simple Authentication, which also works for websites (taxes, gov.kr) but is rather linked to your phone mobile registration (note that you’ll need a postpaid plan for this!). To get one, you can use apps like PASS, Kakao Pay or Toss. Most are in full Korean but you’ll be able to find websites with step-to-step instructions in English on how to navigate those (like the foreign-friendly mobile provider Woori Mobile article).

Good luck, you’re almost there !

출처 : 이로운뉴스(https://www.erounews.kr)