About the AUD/KPW rate
The AUD/KPW rate is how many KPW one Australian dollar buys. It moves constantly with interest-rate expectations, commodity prices and global risk sentiment - see what moves the rate. Tradergy shows the mid-market reference rate and does not forecast where it’s heading. For the 52-week highs and lows and a daily table, see the AUD/KPW rate history.
The other directions of this rate: the reverse rate, KPW → AUD, is on the receiving North Korean won view, and sending Australian dollars to North Korea is covered on the AUD → KPW transfer page. Every AUD pair sits on the convert hub, and to work in more than one currency at once there is the currency converter.
How the rules around North Korean money tightened
The measures around North Korean money were built in three steps, and the verbs are what changed. Resolution 2094, adopted on 7 March 2013, decided that member states shall prevent the provision of financial services or the transfer of financial assets or resources, including bulk cash, that could contribute to the nuclear or ballistic missile programmes. On correspondent banking it was softer, calling upon states to prohibit new branches, subsidiaries and representative offices of North Korean banks and to stop them establishing or maintaining correspondent relationships.
Three years later that request became an instruction. Resolution 2270, of 2 March 2016, decided that states shall prohibit the opening and operation of new branches, subsidiaries and representative offices of North Korean banks, and shall terminate existing joint ventures, ownership interests and correspondent banking relationships within ninety days. It also barred public and private financial support for trade, including export credits, guarantees and insurance.
Resolution 2321, on 30 November 2016, removed the remaining discretion. Existing representative offices, subsidiaries and banking accounts in North Korea were to be closed within ninety days, unless the sanctions committee determined case by case that they were required for humanitarian assistance. The same resolution required states to limit North Korean diplomatic missions and consular posts to one bank account each, and one for each accredited diplomat and consular officer, and to expel individuals found to be working on behalf of a North Korean bank.
Australia gives these effect domestically through the Charter of the United Nations (Sanctions - Democratic People's Republic of Korea) Regulations 2008, whose provisions include a power for the Minister to require the closure of a bank account, a prohibition relating to holding a bank account, and a permit regime for providing financial support for the purposes of trade.
Sources: United Nations Security Council Resolution 2094 (2013), adopted 7 March 2013 · United Nations Security Council Resolution 2270 (2016), adopted 2 March 2016 · United Nations Security Council Resolution 2321 (2016), adopted 30 November 2016 · Federal Register of Legislation, Charter of the United Nations (Sanctions - Democratic People's Republic of Korea) Regulations 2008