SEJONG, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of newly established companies in South Korea fell slightly last year amid a protracted economic slump, government data showed Friday. Some 813,000 new businesses were created in 2015, down 30,000 from 843,000 tallied a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. They took up [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea made a pitch Thursday for its financial technology, or fintech, in China under the government’s campaign to support related startups here seeking to do business abroad. The state-funded Fintech Center held the “Fintech Demo Day in Beijing” event, joined by five South Korean firms and potential business [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean mortgage rates gained considerably in November from the previous month due to rising market interest ahead of a U.S. rate hike, data showed Thursday. Annual mortgage rates charged by South Korea’s top five lenders — KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, KEB Hana Bank and NH [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Korea Bizwire) – The population of the South Korean capital has been declining for the past five years. As of last month, the number of Seoul-registered residents was a little over 9.95 million. But interestingly, the amount of human waste – that is, feces and urine – generated in the city has [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Korea Bizwire) – South Koreans’ use of credit cards jumped last year from a year earlier, central bank data said Wednesday, in the latest sign that a growing number of people favor credit cards over cash for transactions. A survey of 2,500 adults by the Bank of Korea showed that credit cards [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean household debt rose in 2016 from a year earlier as people borrowed money from banks and other financial companies to buy homes, and invest in real estate and businesses, government data showed Tuesday. The average household debt was tallied at 66.55 million won (US$56,000) as of end-March [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – A growing number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Korea are turning to high-interest loans from nonbank lenders as banks tighten their loan screening, data showed Tuesday. As of end-October, outstanding SME loans from nonbank financial institutions came to 76.6 trillion won (US$64.4 billion), up 31.2 percent [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea will relax a regulation on the capital ratio of local banks this week in a move to reduce their financial burden, the country’s finance regulator said Monday. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) will allow them to designate their loan-loss reserves as common capital stock under the revised [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s consumer spending sank to a “seriously” low level in the third quarter of the year, government data showed Monday, as most households tightened their purse strings amid slowing economic growth. Slumping household consumption is widely feared to come as a further drag on Asia’s fourth-largest economy struggling [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – It has been almost two weeks since China’s ambitious Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect was launched, but the trading link has so far failed to drum up much excitement, at least from the point of view of Korean investors. According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, the aggregate trade volume [...]