SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – The South Korean central bank will take a more prudent stance on tightening its monetary policies in the future by checking the pace of economic recovery and inflation pressure, minutes from the latest rate-hike meeting showed Tuesday. The Bank of Korea’s (BOK) monetary policy board meeting for November raised [...]
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) – A slew of changes are coming to the financial services sector, from internet banks and the postal service being given the green light to begin offering products – a means of beefing up competition and thereby creating a “catfish effect” – to shrinking the yearly sales volume of firms’ [...]
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. 14 (Korea Bizwire) – A leaked draft outlining the government’s cryptocurrency regulations has been met with a sigh of relief from investors, as earlier reports of an all-out ban seem to have been debunked. Despite a number of reports that the South Korean government would follow in China’s footsteps and ban all cryptocurrency transactions, [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — Gold funds in South Korea have fared poorly over the past months ahead of a U.S. interest rate decision, a market tracker said Thursday. Those funds chalked up an average return of minus 11.6 percent over the three months to Tuesday, the worst performer among local investment funds worth [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — A virtual currency boom in South Korea is feared to have a negative impact on the country’s tech-heavy secondary stock market as it may drain money from the bourse, analysts said Wednesday. Virtual currencies, such as bitcoin and ethereum, have gained rapid popularity in recent years among South Korean [...]
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. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea is considering banning all kinds of cryptocurrency transactions in the country as a way to cool down the worldwide craze for digital currencies, the top financial regulator said Monday. “I don’t see bitcoin transactions as financial deals,” Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chairman Choi Jong-ku said in a luncheon meeting with reporters. ”They are not institutionalized [...]
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 [...]