SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – Small owner-operated businesses are facing a crisis after relying on loans to survive the pandemic. South Korean credit service provider NICE Information Service reported that loans for sole proprietorships exceeded 688 trillion won (US$480 billion) as of late June this year, which was 8 percent more than late last [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 15 percent of households in South Korea are unable to balance their budget, a local think tank said. According to the last year’s study on household finance and welfare conducted by the Korea Institute of Finance, 17.2 percent (3.54 million) of the 20.52 million households in the [...]
SEOUL, May 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Eight out of 10 young people in their twenties who applied for personal rehabilitation took out loans from secondary financial institutions including credit cooperatives and savings banks, a survey showed Wednesday. The Seoul Financial Welfare Counseling Center conducted a survey of 512 young people in their twenties who completed [...]
SEOUL, April 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean public firms’ liabilities rose for the fourth straight year last year to hit another record high as they borrowed more to make investments amid the economic recovery, the finance ministry said Friday. Of 350 state-run companies, the combined debt of 347 firms reached 583 trillion won (US$463.4 [...]
SEJONG, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Debt held by wage workers in South Korea grew at a much faster pace in 2020 from a year earlier amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Bank and non-bank loans extended to paid workers in Asia’s fourth-largest economy averaged 48.6 million won (US$39,800) per person [...]
SEOUL, March 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Debt among the “MZ generation,” a Korean term referring to those aged between late 10s and 30s, widened at a faster rate than income compared with 20 years ago, a central bank report showed Tuesday. The “MZ generation” refers to a pairing of two groups — millennials born between [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — More than half of South Koreans aged between 40 and 64 held debt last year as more people took out loans to buy homes amid skyrocketing housing prices, data showed Tuesday. The data by Statistics Korea showed that 56.5 percent of people in the age group borrowed money from [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — The government plans to establish a legal support system to protect adolescents who lack legal awareness from going bankrupt due to the debts inherited from parents. The Ministry of Justice said Wednesday that it will preemptively identify teenagers who need legal advice related to inheritance and provide them with [...]
SEOUL, June 29 (Korea Bizwire) — The self-employed’s debts grew 3.1 percent in 2019 from a year earlier as their income declined amid an economic slowdown, data showed Tuesday. Financial institutions’ loans extended to the self-employed averaged 172 million won (US$151,800) as of end-2019, compared with 167 million won the previous year, according to the [...]
SEOUL, May 13 (Korea Bizwire) — The living conditions of low-income South Koreans have not improved over the past 10 years. Income polarization accelerated during this period as the income of the upper 20 percent increased sharply, dwarfing the marginal increase in the income of the bottom 20 percent. Statistics Korea’s household trend survey showed [...]