SEOUL, Nov. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — Banks in South Korea earned record net interest income in the first three quarters of the year, helped by sharp rate hikes by the central bank, data showed Thursday. Their interest revenue in the January-September period stood at a combined 40.6 trillion won (US$30.3 billion), up 6.9 trillion won [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Seven in 10 Koreans with mortgage loans saw their interest burden increase compared to last year amid a steep increase in interest rates, a poll showed Tuesday. According to a survey conducted by home matching platform Zigbang Co. of 948 users of its application, 41.4 percent of the respondents [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — As South Korea’s corporate bond market is facing the extreme risk of a credit crunch, the net issuance of corporate bonds was overtaken by the net redemption of corporate bonds this year for the first time in six years. Hyundai Motor Securities Co. analyzed the change in the amount [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of multiple home owners in South Korea fell 2 percent on-year in 2021, data showed Tuesday, apparently on tax burdens. The number of multiple home owners reached 2.27 million in 2021, falling from 2.32 million tallied in the previous year, according to Statistics Korea. They took up [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Major South Korean lender Hana Bank announced that it has converted its closed branch in Seoul’s central Euljiro neighborhood into a complex cultural space called H.art1 through remodeling. H.art1 consists of four floors. On the first floor are installed ATMs and cafes. On the second floor, about 110 artworks [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea and other major economies should stop a string of interest rate hikes to fight inflation, as the extended monetary tightening would exacerbate recession risks, a U.S. expert said Wednesday. Robert Barro, an economics professor at Harvard University, stressed that the central banks around the world, with the [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign investors turned net buyers of South Korean stocks in October despite continued global monetary tightening as they picked up oversold shares, central bank data showed Wednesday. Foreigners’ stock investment funds logged a net inflow of US$2.49 billion in October, swinging from the previous month’s net outflow of $1.65 [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — A number of South Korea’s credit issuers and credit finance firms are downsizing their auto installment financing offerings due to the difficulty in raising funds in a prolonged high interest rate. For these companies, installment interest rates for new cars (based on an installment period of 60 months) stood [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean insurer Heungkuk Life Insurance Co. said Monday it plans to exercise a call option for long-term hybrid bonds issued in 2017, reversing its previous decision to delay the buy-back. “We apologize for causing turmoil in the financial market with our previous decision,” Heungkuk Life Insurance said in [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – Foreign currency-denominated securities sold by South Korean financial institutions have taken a big hit from a local insurer’s recent decision not to exercise a call option for long-term hybrid bonds, which is widely feared to negatively affect their future overseas issues. A week ago, second-tier insurer Heungkuk Life Insurance [...]