SEOUL, July 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign currency deposits at banks in South Korea shrank in June as importers paid bills and individuals sold the greenback amid a strong dollar, data showed on Friday. Residents’ outstanding foreign currency-denominated deposits had reached US$87.06 billion as of end-June, down $2.11 billion from the previous month, according to [...]
SEOUL, July 22 (Korea Bizwire) — Borrowing money online from total strangers was an unfamiliar concept in South Korea in 2014, when Lee Hyo-jin founded 8percent, a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending service targeting people with low-to-mid credit ratings. A former banker of 8 years, Lee was confident there was huge demand in the loan market that [...]
SEOUL, July 21 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign direct investment (FDI) pledged to South Korea’s free economic zones (FEZs) more than doubled in the first half of this year to hit a three-year high amid post-pandemic economic recovery, data showed Thursday. The country’s nine FEZs received US$560 million worth of FDI commitment during the January-June period, [...]
SEOUL, July 21 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of real estate rental contracts shot up in Seoul this year amid an unprecedented drop in the real estate transaction market, data showed Wednesday. According to statistics from the National Court Administration, the number of real estate lease contracts signed in the first half of this year [...]
SEOUL, July 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Despite soaring consumer prices, exchange rates and interest rates, the polarization of consumption is becoming more severe than ever. Even Koreans in their 20s and 30s are choosing to stay at home rather than go on a holiday this summer. A 30-year-old office worker surnamed Jeong wanted to go [...]
SEOUL, July 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Three in 10 South Korean adults have invested in stock funds, with an average investment of close to 40 million won (US$30,480), a poll showed Tuesday. The Korea Financial Investors Protection Foundation conducted a survey of 2,500 adults between 25 and 64 years of age, 28 percent of whom [...]
SEOUL, July 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The average price of an apartment in Seoul has shot up nearly fourfold in the past 18 years after more than doubling under the previous Moon Jae-in administration alone, a civic group analysis showed Tuesday. A 99.1-square-meter apartment in the capital fetched 1.28 billion won (US$973,162) on average as [...]
SEOUL, July 19 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top financial regulator said Tuesday it is necessary to ease a rule that restricts industrial businesses from owning banks, saying that such deregulation could generate mega players like BTS in the financial sector. The government restricts industrial capital from being used to purchase stakes in banks and [...]
SEOUL, July 19 (Korea Bizwire) — As disposable income declines day after day, South Korean consumers are turning their eyes towards cheap refurbished products or near-expired products that are available at significantly discounted prices. Lotte Home Shopping Inc., a shopping unit of retail conglomerate Lotte, saw the average daily order volume of refurbished products rise [...]
SEOUL, July 18 (Korea Bizwire) — A new study has revealed that higher inflation rates lead to a higher rate of homicide. Cho Sung-won, an associate professor at Chosun University, recently published an article on how inflation impacts the four major crimes of murder, robbery, theft and assault in the Korea Criminal Intelligence Review. The [...]