SEOUL, Apr. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Retail investors have expanded their portfolio in South Korea’s junior KOSDAQ bourse, leading to the market’s recent upturn, data showed Wednesday. On Tuesday, the tech-laden KOSDAQ rose 0.48 percent to close at 901.22, the first time in about two and half months that the index surpassed the 900-point mark. [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Growth in South Korea’s auto insurance market slowed last year due to intensifying competition and lower premiums, data showed Wednesday. The car insurance market grew 2.7 percent on-year to 16.8 trillion won (US$15.7 billion) in 2017, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service. The figure contrasts with [...]
SEOUL, April 16 (Korea Bizwire) – The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Monday it has extended its inspection into Samsung Securities over brokerage’s “fat-finger” dividend chaos that shocked the country. The inspection had been completed on Thursday but has been stretched out to April 27 to “figure out special details” of the dividend error, the FSS said in a statement. [...]
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Apr. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Nasdaq Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) has announced that Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) is the first exchange customer in Asia to successfully deploy Nasdaq SMARTS Market Surveillance’s latest machine learning and participant relationship discovery technology across its equity market, enhancing its capabilities to safeguard market integrity, and better protect [...]
SEOUL, April 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The government plans to keep the growth rate of household debt to below 8.2 percent this year by taking a set of steps to curb excessive lending, the nation’s top financial regulator said Monday. Outstanding household debt stood at 1,450.9 trillion won (US$1.35 trillion) in the fourth-quarter of last [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean brokerages on Saturday forecast that 128 companies listed on the main bourse will post a 16 percent on-year jump in combined operating profit in the first quarter. Local brokerages estimated the 128 listed firms on the Korea Exchange (KRX) will post a combined operating profit of 46.8 [...]
SEOUL, April 13 (Korea Bizwire) – Kakao Corp., a major mobile messenger service provider, said Friday it issued some 500,000 debit cards during the 90 days since the cards were launched. The operator of Kakao Talk began the debit card service in January to enter the offline payment business. While Kakao Corp. was already working with commercial banks and credit card firms, it decided to issue its own cards to enable offline use by more [...]
SEOUL, April 12 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea and Sudan held a high-level policy consultation meeting on Thursday to discuss strengthening economic cooperation in the wake of the lifting of American sanctions on Sudan last year, the foreign ministry here said. Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs Yun Kang-hyeon welcomed the lifting of 20-year-old sanctions and discussed cooperation with Sudan’s Undersecretary Abdel-ghani Elnaim, [...]
SEOUL, April 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The money supply in South Korea accelerated at the fastest pace in 10 months in February on increased corporate lending, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country’s M2 totaled 2,570.8 trillion won (US$2.41 trillion) in February, up 6.2 percent from 2,420.3 trillion won a year earlier, the Bank of [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Investment deals by South Korea’s private equity funds jumped 39.3 percent on-year in 2017, but their investments were still centered on local firms, government data showed Wednesday. Local private equity groups invested 12.4 trillion won (US$11.6 billion) last year, compared with 8.9 trillion won in 2016, according to the [...]