Viva Republica is the operator of Toss; firm has announced a $48 million funding round for the payment app from PayPal, Goodwater Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Altos Ventures and Partech Ventures; Toss has reported significant market share in Korea with over six million app downloads and payment transactions of over $3 billion; Viva Republica has also partnered with 18 of Korea's 19 major banks and now provides payment services to 98% of Korea's banking customers; for PayPal the investment builds out its payment services portfolio which includes mobile payment processor Venmo. Source
Korea's Financial Services Commission just issued a guideline that limits most individual investors from committing more than 10 million won ($8,750) to P2P investments in a year; those individuals who have earnings over 100 million won ($87,500) can still commit up to 40 million won to P2P; Korean P2P platforms are complaining that investments in any equity project or loan portfolio tend to be skewed to a few individuals who invest more than 10 million won (60% of investors fall into this category on average across platforms there), therefore the new regulation will drive up funding costs; regulators say this over-concentration of funds from few investors is precisely the trend they hope to curtail. Source