SEOUL, June 1 (Korea Bizwire) – On the morning of June 1, 7:20 a.m., an accident occurred at a metro construction site in Namyang-ju, northern Seoul, killing four on the site according to Yonhap news. The number of injuries has been confirmed as eight and others were transferred to a nearby hospital. Witnesses said there had [...]
SEOUL, May 30 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea, aiming to become the hub of Asia’s financial technology (fintech) sector, signed a memorandum of understanding with France on Monday. The agreement included sharing related information and supporting each other’s fintech firms. A partnership with France, a core player in the eurozone economy, is seen as offering [...]
SEOUL, May 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s main bourse on Friday said it will introduce a “kill switch” and other safety measures in its program trading platform next month to prevent investors from suffering losses from trading errors. A kill switch, also known as an emergency stop or e-stop, is a safety mechanism designed to [...]
SEOUL, May 17 (Korea Bizwire) – Two major foreign banks in South Korea suffered declines in their first-quarter profit due to a lack of growth drivers and declining net interest margins, the companies said Tuesday. In the three months ending March 31, Standard Chartered Bank Korea posted a 22.6 percent on-year drop in its first-quarter [...]
SEOUL, May 14 (Korea Bizwire) – Just like the rest of the world, Korea is suffering from a prolonged economic downturn. Like societies elsewhere, Koreans and their businesses are adapting and adjusting to what is starting to be accepted as a new economic reality. To begin with, there has been a clear shift in [...]
SEOUL, May 13 (Korea Bizwire) – More than one hundred days have passed since the Korean government established new guidelines for credit checks, leading to more rigorous income evaluations for loan applicants. The policy is part of efforts to ease the national economic debt burden, which now stands at over 1.2 quadrillion won in household [...]
SEJONG, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s rapidly increased life expectancy has helped boost the country’s economic growth by 0.4 percentage point over the past 15 years as people tend to save more, eventually leading to an increase in spending and capital stocks, a report showed Thursday. South Korea’s life expectancy reached 82.4 years [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) – CoCo bonds, or contingent convertible bonds, are fixed-income instruments that are equity-convertible in cases of pre-specified trigger events. Despite their liability-like properties, they are classified as assets, which is prompting many banks to issue CoCo bonds as means of expanding capital. So technically, they’re asset-convertible debt. Major Korean banks, [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) – The soundness of Korean banks is significantly lower than those of the US, Canada and North Europe. Risk management failures are contributing to increasing rates of weak credit, and Return on Equity (ROE) is lower than ever. According to KB Financial Group (KBFG), the distressed-debt ratios of banks in [...]
SEJONG, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) – Sluggish global investment stemming from the 2008 global financial crisis has dragged down South Korea’s economic growth by 0.21 percentage point on an annual basis, a report said Tuesday. Global investment was hit hard by the global financial crisis as its portion against the world’s gross demand fell by [...]