SEOUL, Apr. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — In the two years since the launch of the country’s first Internet-only bank, South Korea’s banking sector has moved towards digitalization to better satisfy customers’ growing appetite for convenient and diverse financial experiences. As new Internet-only banks get ready to set sail next year, competition in the industry is [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Homemakers, university graduates, and other financially vulnerable groups will be able to qualify for loans more easily if they have been paying for their mobile plans diligently. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced on Tuesday that five major banks in South Korea will consider mobile payments and non-financial information [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The daily amount of payments made electronically nearly doubled last year as a growing number of South Koreans are carrying out their financial transactions on smartphones, central bank data showed Wednesday. The daily average for electronic financial transactions came to a record 126.1 billion won (US$111.1 million) in 2018, [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Loans and the loan default rate both rose for the self-employed last year, the regulator’s data showed Monday. The loans extended to the self-employed totaled 389.8 trillion won (US$342.83 billion) at the end of the third quarter last year, up 13.9 percent from the same period of the previous [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — There is at least one industry in South Korea where hardly a day goes by without financial authorities mentioning deregulation: financial technology, or fintech. Since the National Assembly passed bills last September on a “regulatory sandbox,” in which fintech firms are allowed to experiment under amicable regulations, state regulators [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Internet banking services grew at a fast clip last year, with the number of daily transactions and their total value reaching record highs, central bank data showed Thursday. The number of online banking service users came to a record 146.56 million as of the end of 2018, [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 63 percent of South Koreans have used banking and payment services via smartphones as a growing number are getting familiar with the tech device in their everyday lives, a central bank poll showed Tuesday. The survey of 2,597 adults, conducted by the Bank of Korea (BOK) last [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced on Wednesday that there have been 270,000 medical insurance subscriptions over the past 10 months for a new insurance policy that was launched last year. The insurance policy, which was released in April of last year, is a product with a lowered threshold [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — The combined market capitalization of major listed entertainment agencies sharply lost ground since a sex scandal surrounding K-pop stars rose to the surface last month, market data showed Sunday. The combined market capitalization of the top five listed entertainment agencies plunged around 600 billion won (US$527 million) on Friday [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s four major banks reduced their payrolls by more than 9 percent over the past two years due to the fast spread of Internet and phone banking, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The lenders — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, KEB Hana and Nonghyup — cut their combined workforce by [...]