SEOUL, Sept. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s financial regulatory body said Friday it will soon decide whether to issue a permit for the nation’s first online-only bank. Two consortiums, one led by KT Corp. and the other by Kakao Corp., are preparing to enter the banking sector with their technical expertise. KT’s consortium submitted [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent report from the U.S. Department of Commerce highlighted South Korea’s role in creating jobs in America, indicating that the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement is yielding positive outcomes despite recent criticism from Donald Trump. The Republican presidential candidate has ceaselessly condemned the trade pact as part of his [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Korea Bizwire) – The Korean stock market was very much affected by the first U.S. presidential debate, and was clearly in favor of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Korea’s representative KOSPI index opened Tuesday with doubts over the first debate, but with Clinton gaining strength against Donald Trump as the debate progressed, the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s pension subscription rate is too low to be able to handle the growing elderly population, and tax benefits may be one way of inducing people to sign on to private pensions for post-retirement life, a local research institute said Tuesday. According to the Hana Institute of Finance, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – A growing number of South Korean households face the risk of defaulting on their debts, a potential “time bomb” for Asia’s fourth-largest economy, a lawmaker said Tuesday. The number of “marginal” households came to 1.34 million as of March last year, a sharp increase from 1.12 million three years [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – Amid rapid automotive innovation that has promoted enhanced driving safety, car insurance may gradually become nonessential. According to a KIDI report released Monday, if 50 percent of domestic vehicles are equipped with level 1 function-specific automation (NHTSA), including autonomous emergency and autonomous reverse braking technologies, annual insurance payouts will [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – South Koreans held an average of 27,371 euros (US$30,703) in financial assets, excluding liabilities, in 2015, placing the country 21st among 53 surveyed in the Allianz Global Wealth Report released on Monday that also noted their spiking debt. The sum in financial assets marks an increase of approximately 3,000 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – Tens of thousands of unionized bank workers in South Korea staged a walkout Friday against the expansion of a performance-based pay system in the nation’s financial industry. There were no reports yet of major disruptions in banking services across the country, as the participation rate was apparently lower than [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – Amid concerns over last week’s historic earthquake and the hundreds of aftershocks that have followed, some insurance companies have ceased to offer earthquake insurance products. A record magnitude-5.8 earthquake struck the peninsula on September 12 with its epicenter some eight kilometers south of Gyeongju. Since the original temblor, some [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 21 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s chief financial regulator called on the nation’s umbrella bank union Wednesday to withdraw its plan to go on a general strike later this week, saying such a collective action will never win public support especially at a time when the local banking industry faces a “life-or-death” crisis. [...]