SEOUL, June 27 (Korea Bizwire) – The rapid growth of K Bank is making its rivals nervous, with some bank heads praising the success of Korea’s first internet-only bank as ‘beyond expectations’, and noting that they hope to maintain a good relationship as partners as well as contenders. Speaking to Yonhap News, the heads of major [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The National Pension Service’s low interest loan packages dubbed “Silver Loans” are a big hit among its target demographic of pensioners who are 60 and above. Launched in May of 2012, the Silver Loan (officially titled “Rapid Loans for the Elderly Program”) initiative is still going strong with numerous [...]
SEOUL, June 7 (Korea Bizwire) – With the Korea Insurance Development Institute due to reveal its reference net premium rates for electric cars by the end of June, industry watchers are speculating that premiums for EVs will be some 10 percent lower than gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles. The reference premium rate will be based on [...]
SEOUL, June 2 (Korea Bizwire) – Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday it has reached an agreement with three local banks to allow users to use banking services via its voice command program, Bixby. The South Korean tech giant said under the project with Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank and KEB Hana Bank, users can ask the [...]
SEOUL, May 31 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean stocks closed higher on Wednesday to snap a two-day losing streak as institutional buyers scooped up medical and telecoms shares offsetting a massive selling spree by foreigners following overnight Wall Street losses, analysts said. The Korean won rose against the U.S. dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock [...]
SEOUL, May 31 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s central bank should maintain the current monetary easing policy to support growth, a member of the Bank of Korea’s (BOK) monetary policy board said Wednesday. Koh Seung-beom made the case during a luncheon meeting with reporters at the BOK headquarters in central Seoul, noting the recovery [...]
SEOUL, May 23 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea has trumped other Asian Pacific countries in terms of mobile financial service usage, a report showed Monday. Users in South Korea had over 7 billion sessions in banking apps in 2016, which was nearly four times as many compared to Australians, according to the latest report by [...]
SEOUL, May 18 (Korea Bizwire) – Citibank Korea, the local unit of U.S. banking giant Citigroup, said Wednesday that it will convert almost all nonregular workers on its payroll into regular employees by the end of this year. Citibank Korea said the beneficiaries include about 300 tellers and other workers with low wages, which account for 8.5 percent of its total staff. Bank CEO Park Jin-hei said the agenda to change [...]
SEOUL, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea has imposed a levy on financial firms’ non-deposit foreign borrowing to ease volatility in capital flows, the central banks said Thursday. The Bank of Korea said 66 financial companies, including 17 local banks and 34 branches of foreign lenders, are required to pay 0.1 percent of their [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of foreign residents who took out life insurance policies here topped 200,000 in 2015, with their subscriptions rising at an annual rate of 16 percent over the past five years, industry data showed Sunday. According to the data compiled by the Korea Insurance Development Institute, a total [...]