Your Korean supplier wants payment to a personal account

You have agreed terms with a Korean company, the invoice arrives, and the account holder is a person’s name rather than the business. This is the moment to stop and check — but it is not automatically fraud, and treating it that way will cost you good suppliers.

When it is entirely normal

Korean sole traders — 개인사업자 — often trade through an account in the owner’s own name. There is no legal requirement for an individual business to hold a separate business account, and for a small operation it is common practice rather than evasion.

You can tell whether you are dealing with a sole trader from the registration number itself. The middle two digits carry it: 01–79 or 90–99 means an individual, while 81, 85, 86, 87 and 88 mean a corporation. See the number structure guide.

When it is a warning sign

• The counterparty is a corporation. A 주식회사 has a corporate account. There is rarely a good reason for its receivables to land in an individual’s.
• The account name matches nobody — neither the company nor its registered representative.
• The details changed mid-relationship. You paid a company account before and are now asked to pay a personal one. This is the classic shape of a compromised email thread.
• The request arrives with urgency — a deadline, a discount that expires, a delay that will cost you. Pressure is a technique, not a coincidence.

How to ask without causing offence

A legitimate supplier will not be insulted by a payment verification question; it is routine in Korean business too. Asking in Korean signals that you are careful rather than suspicious.

The step people skip

Confirm by voice, on a number you already had — not one printed on the invoice or in the email making the request. Payment-redirection fraud works precisely because everything else is genuine: real company, real relationship, real invoice, altered account line. Email confirmation of an email request proves nothing, because the attacker is in the email.

And re-check that the business is still trading on the day you pay, not at onboarding — see paying a Korean supplier.