SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — Starting next month, those who refuse bank-issued passbooks when creating accounts will be exempt from certain fees according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Bank tellers will present the option for paper-based passbooks (bank ledgers) and customers will make the decision to apply for one or go without. The [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Banks in South Korea saw their financial health improve slightly in the second quarter of this year helped by modest gains in their profits, the financial regulator said Wednesday. The average capital adequacy ratio of 18 commercial and state-run banks stood at 15.37 percent as of end-June, up 0.23 [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 22 (Korea Bizwire) - A report showing the number of employees at seven major banks revealed that there were 4,076 fewer employees at the end of June compared to the same time last year. Of the 4,076 employees who either quit or were let go, 3,218 were temporary staff and the remaining 858 [...]
SEOUL, June 2 (Korea Bizwire) – Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday it has reached an agreement with three local banks to allow users to use banking services via its voice command program, Bixby. The South Korean tech giant said under the project with Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank and KEB Hana Bank, users can ask the [...]
SEOUL, April 21 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s credit card companies are seeking to apply the iris scanner adopted by Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy S8 smartphones on mobile transactions, industry sources said Friday, lauding the feature’s security compared with fingerprints and passwords. According to the sources, Samsung Card Co. is seeking to apply the iris [...]
SEOUL, April 13 (Korea Bizwire) – Last year, South Korea’s banking industry saw its employee count drop by 2,248 to 114,775, and 175 bank branches closed down – the biggest drop ever – with the number of ATMs falling to 48,474 from 51,115. The trends are reflective of the inevitable prevalence of internet banking. Bank [...]
SEOUL, March 31 (Korea Bizwire) – The Export-Import Bank of Korea, one of South Korea’s state-run policy banks, suffered a net loss of 1.46 trillion won (US$1.3 billion) last year, hit by higher provisions against its loans extended to the country’s ailing shipbuilding industry. It was the first time that the bank reported an annual [...]
SEOUL, March 28 (Korea Bizwire) – Banks in South Korea sharply downsized their headcounts, branches and automated instruments in 2016 to cut costs amid rapid growth in mobile and Internet banking, government data showed Tuesday. The combined workforce of lenders operating in the country stood at 114,775 as of the end of last year, down [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea said Thursday it will revise regulations on the capital market in a bid to foster mega-sized investment banks (IBs) here modeled after Goldman Sachs. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) notified the public of the revision plan in which local brokerages with a huge capital base will be [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – The implementation of flextime – a workplace arrangement that allows employees to choose their working hours – is quickly expanding across the local banking industry. KB Kookmin Bank currently has 45 branches that have adopted a flextime system, allowing employees to delay their work hours by an hour or [...]