SEOUL, June 30 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean households are taking out loans at a faster clip than the increase in their income or ability to pay back, suggesting that household debt may cause serious problems down the road, the central bank said Thursday. In a report to the National Assembly, the Bank of Korea [...]
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 [...]
SEOUL, April 24 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean households’ debts owed to the nonbanking sector spiked over the past two months, suggesting that those with low credit ratings opted to borrow money despite relatively higher interest, central bank data showed Sunday. According to the data by the Bank of Korea, the outstanding household debts owed [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — A growing number of South Korean households had difficulties paying off their debt with their income last year, data showed Sunday, raising concerns over their financial stability and shrinking domestic consumption. “Marginal households” whose debt-to-disposable income ratio is over 40 percent tallied at 1.58 million, accounting for 14.8 percent [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 17 (Korea Bizwire) – Mounting household debt in South Korea is a major risk factor that could undermine financial stability and economic growth of Asia’s fourth-largest economy, but the country’s fundamental soundness and pre-emptive measures could help resolve such problems, a former Moody’s analyst said Tuesday. “(A U.S. rate hike) will have effects [...]
“(The BOK) will likely proceed in the direction of sustaining its accommodative stance as it is difficult to be positive about domestic economic recovery. Policy circumstances may rapidly change due to factors such as a possible U.S. rate hike, but there is a need to be prudent in adjusting the stance of the monetary policy [...]
SEOUL, March 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s central bank unexpectedly slashed the base rate to a record low of 1.75 percent on Thursday, putting efforts to shore up growth on top of concerns over persistent household debt growth. The rate cut is the first since October, when the Bank of Korea (BOK) brought down the [...]
SEOUL, March 11 (Korea Bizwire) – Household loan growth at South Korean banks more than doubled in February from a month earlier on robust property transactions and solid demand for loans amid low interest rates, central bank data showed Wednesday. Household loans, which include mortgage lending, extended by local lenders reached 566 trillion won (US$503 [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 30 percent of households said they took on new debt within the past two years since 2012. This is mainly due to the Bank of Korea‘s benchmark interest rate cuts in two occasions this year and the government’s measures to relax the regulation on the loan-to-value ratio and [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – Korea’s economic actors, including households, firms, and governments, have all exceeded the critical point of debt burden as set by the World Economic Forum. According to Congressman Lee Hahn-koo (New Frontier Party), the ratios of debt to the gross domestic products as of the end of 2013 for households, firms, and [...]