SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – Household loans extended by the country’s five major banks rose by the most on record last month despite warnings from the financial regulators and a series of rate hikes, industry sources said Monday. According to the sources, KB Kookmin, Woori and three others extended a combined 9.62 trillion won [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — The finance ministry said Monday it will push to reduce 32.1 trillion won (US$24.01 billion) of debt incurred by 14 financially troubled public companies combined by 2026 through asset sales and organization restructuring. According to the revised financial management plan, the government set the target debt amount for Korea [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — The Bank of Korea (BOK) said Friday that it agreed to launch local currency transactions for cross-border payments in late September. Under the agreement, current account transactions between the two nations in their local currencies will be facilitated, and costs for businesses and other users will be reduced, they [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean banks saw their combined net income shrink sharply from a year earlier in the first half, due largely to a drop in the profit of specialized banks, data showed Thursday. The combined net profit of domestic banks for the first six months of the year came to [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – In a surprising trend, half of the recent applicants for health insurance policies designed for individuals with pre-existing conditions are in their 60s, according to a recent analysis. This demographic, which has historically faced challenges in obtaining coverage, is emerging as a significant force in the insurance market, coinciding with [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — A probe has found large-scale insurance fraud at a traditional medicine hospital involving more than 100 people, the financial regulator said Tuesday. Around 100 “fake” patients at the hospital are suspected of having made false insurance claims worth about 100 billion won (US$72.3 million), according to the Financial Supervisory [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – Samsung Electronics announced on June 27 that it has partnered with KB Kookmin Card to introduce an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) credit card, leveraging low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) technology and Samsung’s SmartThings Find service. SmartThings Find is a specialized service that allows users to locate various Samsung devices, including Galaxy [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Internet-only lender Kakao Bank launched a new dollar deposit service Tuesday that can be linked with the online payment platform Travel Wallet to enable fee-free overseas cash withdrawals. The new program, called “Dollar Box,” allows any Kakao Bank customer aged 19 years old or older to open one account [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The chief of the financial regulator on Wednesday stressed the need to change the very mindset of bank officials to prevent financial incidents such as incomplete sales. Lee Bok-hyun, head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), made the remark in a meeting with the heads of 20 banks in [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s foreign reserves declined in May due to a fall in deposits and the central bank’s foreign currency swap with the country’s national pension fund, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country’s foreign reserves had come to US$412.83 billion as of end-May, down $3.51 billion from the previous [...]