SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s corporate watchdog is looking into whether Mirae Asset Group, a major financial service provider, is violating regulations over inside transactions among its affiliates, industry sources said Friday. The current law forbids inter-affiliate trading within a business group where the controlling family holds more than 30 percent of [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — An interest rate rise in South Korea will increase the debt repayment burdens of vulnerable households who over-extended themselves on mortgages during the low rate period, the central bank said Thursday. “In general, household and corporate borrowers will be able to afford an increase in debt repayment incurred by [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Only 3 in 10 South Koreans currently use desktop online banking, while the majority have turned to mobile banking services accessed via smartphones and tablet PCs, a new survey has found. According to data provided by pollster DMC Media, around 28 percent of South Korean bank account holders aged between [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung Electronics Co.’s mobile payment system is moving to expand into the banking sector to offer more diverse services to users, the South Korean tech giant said Sunday. The company said that starting Thursday, the payment system installed on some of its newer smartphones can be used to carry [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – Internet-only banks like K Bank and Kakao Bank are rated higher in consumer satisfaction than online banking services provided by traditional financial institutions, but trust issues with the online services remain. Consumer satisfaction with internet-only banks was higher in six categories, among them bank fees and interest rates, compared [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — A private association of cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea said Wednesday that it will voluntarily restrict cryptocurrency transactions with bank accounts starting next year, in a bid to prevent such transactions from being used for money laundering and other crimes. The Blockchain Association, an industry group of some 30 [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top financial regulator said Tuesday it will use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to automate some of the nation’s probe systems against money laundering. Kim Yong-beom, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), said it will start building the anti-money laundering compliance system using AI next year. [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Internet-only Kakao Bank said Thursday it posted a cumulative net loss of 66.8 billion won (US$61.4 million) by the end of September, hit by higher marketing costs. Kakao Bank, which began operations on July 27, reported a cumulative operating profit of 17.3 billion won by the end of September, [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – The board of Woori Bank on Thursday named its acting chief Sohn Tae-seung the new head of South Korea’s No. 3 lender, officials said. Sohn, the lender’s executive vice president and head of the global business group, was designated to lead the bank for a three-year term at a meeting of board members. Sohn, 58, has [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial authority on Wednesday announced that it will forgive up to 6.2 trillion won (US$5.7 billion) worth of bad debt, in the latest measure to help hard-pressed people who cannot pay back their debts. The move, which will affect some 1.59 million debtors, is aimed at reducing [...]