SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial watchdog on Monday unveiled an ambitious roadmap to overhaul consumer protection, signaling a shift away from after-the-fact remedies toward preemptive intervention across the life cycle of financial products. The Financial Supervisory Service said it aims to make 2025 a “foundational year” for substantive consumer protection by embedding [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial watchdog warned on Monday that bonus systems at banks and other financial institutions remain overly focused on short-term performance, even as incentive pay surged more than 30 percent last year. The Financial Supervisory Service said total performance-based compensation paid to employees at financial companies reached 1.396 trillion [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — As soaring prices and rising gold costs strain household budgets, South Korea’s long-standing tradition of lavish first-birthday celebrations for infants, known as doljanchi, is steadily giving way to smaller, more private observances. Once marked by banquet halls, elaborate ceremonial tables and gold rings given as gifts, doljanchi has increasingly been [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s used-car exports surged sharply this year, helping offset a slowdown in new vehicle shipments and preventing an overall decline in the country’s automotive exports, according to government and industry data released Sunday. From January through November, used-car exports reached $8.4 billion, up 82.6 percent from a year earlier, [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly seven in ten individual investors in South Korea earned profits from stock trading this year, buoyed by gains in large-cap shares despite continued volatility in the broader market, according to data released Thursday. An analysis by Shinhan Securities of domestic stock transactions from January through November found that 67 [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Increased liquidity is not the sole factor behind the recent surge in housing prices in the Seoul metropolitan area or the weakness of the local currency, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Tuesday, stressing that monetary policy alone is not sufficient to fully control an increase in loans. In [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean companies’ earnings recorded a 20 percent on-year gain in 2024 on increased exports of semiconductors, government data showed Tuesday. The combined before-tax net profit of South Korean companies reached 181.9 trillion won (US$123.9 billion) last year, up 20.6 percent from 150.8 trillion won tallied in 2023, according [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea said Tuesday it will invest at least 4.5 trillion won (US$3.06 billion) to secure overseas logistics hubs as part of an effort to shore up exporters’ supply chains and reduce reliance on foreign-owned facilities. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries laid out the plan during a ministerial [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea and the United Kingdom signed an upgraded free trade agreement aimed at easing rules of origin for Korean exporters and expanding access to Britain’s high-speed rail and digital services markets, Seoul’s trade ministry said Tuesday. The deal, signed in London by Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo and [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s wealthy population continued to grow last year, exceeding 476,000 individuals with more than 1 billion won (about $760,000) in financial assets, according to a new report that highlights widening asset gaps and a renewed appetite for stock investments despite a climate of economic uncertainty. The 2025 Korea Wealth [...]