전자금융거래법상 접근매체 대여에 있어 ‘대가’의 의미 고찰 – 최근 판례들을 중심으로 –

Under Article 6. 3. 2. of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, it prohibits the borrowing or lending a means of access, or storing, delivering or distributing a means of access, accompanied by receipt, demand of promise of any compensation. Recent cases violating such laws related to lending an access medium such as a check card to a person impersonating an employee of a financial institution or a loan company for the purpose of obtaining a loan. However, the court’s rulings have not been consistent as to whether such “compensation” referred to in the above provisions includes intangible property gains, such as the expectation of borrowing. In the Supreme Court’s ruling on Juen 16, 2019, for case number 2017do16946, it recognized the relationship of the economic benefit in obtaining the opportunity of obtaining a loan by lending the access medium as “compensation”. Despite this ruling, it failed to maintain this judgment and later, in similar cases, the relationship was recognized or denied. Considering the literary meaning of the word “compensation”, it is unreasonable to assume a narrow definition to only include tangible money and if expectations of loans are excluded from the scope of the “compensation”, it goes against the spirit and purpose of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act. Furthermore, in other legal provisions that punish the act of promising or accepting a compensation, they have explicit expressions to include economic benefits in “compensation”. As a result, it is reasonable to interpret that “compensation” is not limited to only money and includes both tangible and intangible economic benefits related to the lending of access media. As such, it is expected that this will establish a consistent and uniform standard for the court.