SEOUL, April 18 (Korea Bizwire) – Organizers of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games on Tuesday signed KEB Hana Bank as their main banking partner. The two sides recently wrapped up their negotiations that began in February and announced their deal in a ceremony at KEB Hana Bank’s headquarters in central Seoul. The bank will reportedly [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — A rise in geopolitical risks surrounding North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile provocations is causing a surge in gold prices and fueling trade in the precious metal, the local exchange said Sunday. According to the Korea Exchange (KRX), a gram of gold was trading at 46,840 won (US$41), up [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s tax burden, which has steadily risen over the years, still remains among the lowest among the group of developed market economies with high income, data showed Sunday. Data by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that the tax burden ratio of Asia’s fourth-largest [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea collected a record amount of local and central government taxes last year, official data showed Sunday, with the numbers likely to go up in the coming years. According to data by the finance and interior ministries and the central bank, Seoul brought in 318.1 trillion won (US$278.5 [...]
SEOUL, April 16 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea ranked 24th among 28 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries in terms of the state growth sustainability index, a local think tank said Sunday. The Hyundai Research Institute has developed its own index to measure each state’s sustainable growth levels. South Korea scored 0.443, [...]
SEOUL, April 14 (Korea Bizwire) – Crowdfunding was a rather alien concept in South Korea up until 2015, when a revision to the Capital Market Act was passed by the National Assembly, paving the way for a practice called equity crowdfunding. Unlike reward-based crowdfunding, which compensates sponsors with different prizes, equity crowdfunding allows the investor [...]
SEOUL, April 14 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s online shopping site operators continued to report operating losses last year from a year earlier, as more market competition hurt their profitability, regulatory data showed Friday. Coupang Inc. suffered a combined operating loss of 560 billion won (US$490.8 million) in the January-December period of 2016 compared with [...]
SEOUL, April 14 (Korea Bizwire) – Citibank Korea, the South Korean unit of Citigroup Inc., said Thursday it will offer financial services via online channels while closing about 80 percent of its physical branches in South Korea. Citibank, which recently announced a plan to reduce the number of physical branches to 32 from 133 in the country, has said it won’t slash staff, despite ongoing restructuring measures. Instead, about 800 workers at the branches facing closure will be relocated to either [...]
SEOUL, April 13 (Korea Bizwire) – The state-run main creditor of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Thursday it is willing to negotiate with the state pension fund on the ailing shipbuilder’s debt rescheduling measures. The remarks by Korea Development Bank (KDB) CEO Lee Dong-geol came as the National Pension Service (NPS) is set [...]
SEOUL, April 13 (Korea Bizwire) – Last year, South Korea’s banking industry saw its employee count drop by 2,248 to 114,775, and 175 bank branches closed down – the biggest drop ever – with the number of ATMs falling to 48,474 from 51,115. The trends are reflective of the inevitable prevalence of internet banking. Bank [...]