SEOUL, Nov. 14 (Korea Bizwire) – The Bank of Korea base rate dropped in June to a record low 1.25 percent. Commercial institutions followed suit, adjusting their interest rates. And as of September, no banks offered time deposit accounts with 2 percent or higher interest rates. Saving in Korea is no longer a lucrative business. [...]
SEOUL, June 20 (Korea Bizwire) – Deposit interest rates have fallen so low that consumers can’t even pay a single ATM fee with their annual interest income, and their distress is compounded by the latest policies from the big banks to increase wire transfer and ATM fees. The annual nominal interest rate for a savings [...]
SEOUL, June 10 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean investors are piling into high-yield corporate bonds with relatively high risk in search of bigger returns as the country’s interest rates are at rock bottom, sources said Friday. Trading of these so-called mezzanine bonds have recently been active as investors are drawn to debt that offers a higher [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – An interest rate hike of just 0.25 percentage points will likely cause the household debt service burden to rise by 1.9 trillion won (US$1.6 billion) per year, hurting consumer spending and affecting overall growth, the central bank said Thursday. In a report submitted to Rep. Park Won-suk of the [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Korea Bizwire) – Under the current market conditions, attention is concentrated on profitable real estate. Due to continued low interest rates, the auction price ratio of business and commercial properties at court auctions exceeded 70 percent for the first time in nine years. The number of bids also reached an all time [...]
SEOUL, July 22 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s asset management firms have seen an influx of money this year as their indirect investment vehicles enjoy popularity amid the low interest rate environment, data showed Wednesday. The combined assets under management by local firms reached 812.87 trillion won (US$704.1 billion) as of Friday, up 18.9 percent [...]
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 [...]