SEOUL, April 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Pay Corp., the fintech unit of South Korean tech giant Kakao, said Thursday it plans to acquire a controlling stake in Siebert Financial Corp., a U.S. brokerage firm, as part of efforts to expand its financial business abroad. Kakao Pay said in a regulatory filing it has signed [...]
SEOUL, March 31 (Korea Bizwire) — Toss Bank, the country’s third internet-only banking firm, said Friday it suffered a loss last year due to increased loan-loss reserves. Toss Bank, which went into operation in October 2021, reported a net loss of 264.4 billion won (US$203.3 million) in 2022, the lender said in a statement. Toss [...]
SEOUL, March 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial regulator said Monday that local banks showed no signs of abnormality in their withdrawal and deposit operations. The assessment by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) came amid concerns of a global banking crisis following the recent failures of two U.S. banks — Silicon Valley Bank and [...]
SEOUL, March 17 (Korea Bizwire) — As a bank run carried out from smartphones has been identified as one of the factors behind the rapid downfall of Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in just 36 hours, concerns are growing that South Korea’s online lenders could also fall prey to a fast-moving bank run. Under the [...]
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean banks saw their 2022 earnings rise nearly 10 percent from a year earlier on sharply increased interest income, data showed Thursday. Their combined net profit came to 18.5 trillion won (US$14.1 billion) last year, up 9.6 percent from the previous year, according to the preliminary data from [...]
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial authorities called on local banks to ramp up efforts to prepare for possible crises amid the fallout from the collapses of two U.S. banks, officials said Thursday. The call came after the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which sparked concerns over their [...]
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Amid growing interest in the protection of depositors resulting from the collapse of the United States-based Silicon Valley Bank, the value of uninsured deposits is estimated at more than 100 trillion won (US$762 billion) in South Korea, data showed Wednesday. According to the data that Rep. Kim Hee-gon of [...]
SEOUL, March 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial regulator said Friday it will expand the disclosure of information on loan-deposit rate differences as part of efforts to promote competition in the banking sector amid criticism that it has been bent on making profits from the “interest business” without diversifying income sources. Banks have been [...]
SEOUL, March 2 (Korea Bizwire) — K-Bank, a South Korean internet-only bank, reported Thursday that its net income in 2022 nearly quadrupled to a record high thanks to a spike in interest income. K-Bank’s net income came to 83.6 billion won (US$64 million) last year, up from a net profit of 22.5 billion won reported [...]
SEOUL, March 1 (Korea Bizwire) — With the value of losses caused by voice phishing estimated at about 1.7 trillion won (US$1.28 billion) over the past five years, South Korean banks are exploring various measures to limit future losses from similar criminal activity. Shinhan Bank introduced an alarm system in March last year that uses [...]