Common people will get the financial consulting service from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) by typing in their basic financial data like monthly income, debts and savings. (image: Kobiz Media / Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – From now on, ordinary people can get private financial “advice” via the Internet like private banking service that people with a large amount of assets use. Common people will get the financial consulting service from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) by typing in their basic financial data like monthly income, debts and savings.
FSS announced on October 20 that it opened an Internet page titled “Easy Financial Consultancy Service (edu.fss.or.kr)” providing financial planning to all Koreans. The service is divided into two sections; the simple financial diagnosis for customers who don’t know their exact income and spending and the detailed financial diagnosis for those who want to check their propriety in their running of the households.
Those who want to get the advice need to answer to five to 29 questions based on their purpose of the service including basic information, target, debt management, retirement management. Based on the information, the service assesses the amount of spending, retirement preparation, and so on and classifies into credit grades such as “good,” “cautious” and “insufficient.”
The service also provides the indexes of average households and recommended ratio of savings to inform the current financial status of the users. When the users are classified as “insufficient,” the service offers video materials which they can use as references to improve their financial standing. However, it does not recommend any financial products provided by commercial banks or insurance companies.
In case of the United Kingdom (Money Advice Service) and Australia (Australian Securities and Investments Commission), they are already running such financial consultancy services for the common people for several years.
An official at FSS said, “The service will be expanded to face-to-face counseling and call services. By providing the private banking service for the common people, we will help them to live financially stable lives and to make financial plans.”
By John Choi (johnchoi@koreabizwire.com)
