SEOUL, May 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans’ use of mobile banking and other online financial services increased in 2021 from two years earlier as customers preferred non-contact services amid the coronavirus pandemic, central bank data showed Wednesday. The Bank of Korea (BOK) said its 2021 survey of 3,536 Koreans aged 19 or older showed [...]
SEOUL, May 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s first-quarter fertility rate hit a fresh nadir and its population fell for 29 months running in March amid rising deaths, data showed Wednesday, pointing to the country’s gloomy demographic situation and chronically low birthrate. The country’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman [...]
SEOUL, May 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s consumption of gasoline and diesel sank more than 18 percent in April from a year earlier due to high international crude prices, data showed Wednesday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy consumed a combined 17.4 million barrels of gas and diesel last month, down 18.3 percent from a year earlier, [...]
SEOUL, May 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign bank branches in South Korea saw their combined net profit down 4.5 percent in 2021 due to a rise in securities-linked losses amid market downswings, data showed Monday. The combined net income of 35 foreign lenders’ local branches stood at 1.15 trillion won (US$904.4 million) in the fiscal [...]
SEOUL, May 22 (Korea Bziwire) — Chinese people purchased nearly 7,000 buildings in South Korea last year, with more than half of the properties being from the Greater Seoul area, a ruling party lawmaker said Sunday. A total of 6,640 buildings, including apartments, were purchased by Chinese nationals last year, and 2,659 of them are [...]
SEOUL, May 22 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign investors have sold nearly 15 trillion won (US$12 billion) worth of South Korean stocks this year through mid-May as they fled to safe haven assets amid growing stagflation worries, the country’s main bourse said Sunday. From Jan. 1 through Friday, foreign selling stood at 14.8 trillion won on [...]
SEOUL, May 20 (Korea Bizwire) — More than seven out of 10 South Koreans are in favor of giving medical assistance to North Korea struggling with a massive COVID-19 outbreak, a poll showed Friday. In a nationwide poll of 1,000 people aged 18 or above conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday to Thursday, 72 percent [...]
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — More than eight out of 10 people who reported sexual harassment at the workplace said they suffered from some form of retaliation, a civic group reported Thursday. Gapjil 119, which campaigns against workplace abuses, announced its analysis of the 205 reports it received from abuse victims between January 2021 [...]
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Household income grew at the fastest pace on record in the first quarter on the back of the economic recovery and state relief funds for pandemic-hit merchants, data showed Thursday. The average household earned 4.83 million won (US$3,800) per month in the January-March period, up 10.1 percent from a [...]
SEOUL, May 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean listed firms saw their first-quarter earnings fall from a year ago amid fast-rising inflation despite growths in operating profit and sales, the bourse operator’s data showed Wednesday. The consolidated net profit of 608 companies listed on the benchmark KOSPI totaled 41.69 trillion won (US$32.84 billion) in the [...]