About the AUD/KRW rate
The AUD/KRW rate is how many KRW 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/KRW rate history.
Related views of this rate: the reverse rate, KRW → AUD, is on the receiving South Korean won view, and sending Australian dollars to South Korea is covered on the AUD → KRW 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.
The market that opened in 2024
South Korea has one of the largest economies in the world and, until recently, one of the most closed currency markets. The onshore market in the won ran from 9am to 3.30pm Seoul time, and only domestic institutions could take part, so anyone outside Korea wanting to deal in won did so at second hand. From January 2024 the authorities began dismantling that in two moves: foreign financial institutions were admitted to the Korean market, and from 1 July 2024 trading hours were extended to 2am the following day, which covers the whole of the London session.
Access runs through a register. A Registered Foreign Institution is a financial institution located overseas that meets the requirements of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act and is registered with the authorities to participate directly. In its one-year review of the change, published in 2025, the Ministry of Economy and Finance reported that fifty-two institutions had registered, that trading during the extended hours averaged about eighteen per cent of daily volume, and that spot volumes were higher than in the preceding year. A minimum activity threshold for keeping a registration has since been set. Those counts are as at that review and will have moved.
Access and price are related, which is why any of this matters to someone converting rather than trading. A currency that only a closed group could deal in, for six and a half hours a day, carried a wider spread and less continuous pricing than the size of its economy warranted. Opening the market is intended to narrow that gap.
None of this was ever about getting hold of won, which has always been simple. The constraint sat in the market behind the rate, in who was allowed to make a price and for how many hours a day, and that is the part Korea has spent two years changing.