Excess funds held by South Korean households and nonprofit agencies increased in the third quarter of last year on a rise in income from pandemic-related state support and less spending on houses, central bank data showed Thursday. Net financial funds -- the value of financial assets minus financial liabilities -- held by local households and nonprofit organizations serving households amounted t...

The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea (Exim Bank) said Thursday that it has issued $3 billion worth of dollar bonds to foreign investors. The state lender has sold three-year bonds worth $1 billion, another $1 billion in five-year bonds and $1 billion worth of debt that will mature in 10 years. It marks the largest-ever issuance of foreign-currency bonds among local institutions except the ...

South Korean stocks opened lower Thursday as the US Federal Reserve minutes stoked concerns that the Fed may push harsher-than-expected rate hikes. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 13.69 points, or 0.46 percent, to 2,940.28 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks got off to a lackluster start, tracking the overnight Wall Street tech plunge. The tech-heavy ...

Nearly 9 in 10 South Korean exporting companies expect the global trade situation in 2022 not to improve compared with the previous year due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic, a poll showed Thursday. The survey of 300 exporting firms showed 55 percent of the respondents anticipating this year's world trade conditions to be similar to those in 2021. About 37 percent said the global trade climat...

South Korean stocks retreated Wednesday on worries the rising long-term bond yields in the United States may hasten the Federal Reserve's tapering move. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) declined 35.27 points, or 1.18 percent, to close at 2,953.97 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 774 million shares worth some 14.6 tril...

South Korea’s state-run banks are gearing up for major overseas business expansions this year, in line with the global economy adopting measures to return to normalcy from the pandemic. Korea Development Bank, the nation’s development financial lender that provides local firms risk capital, is likely to upgrade its current office in Frankfurt, Germany, to a branch by the end of the year. KDB Cha...

South Korea’s financial institutions -- including banks, brokerages and credit card companies -- launched an all-in-one banking service Wednesday for customers to manage their financial data spread across financial firms in one place. Called “MyData,” the service was put on a trial run in December before 33 financial institutions officially started offering it this week to help customers make mo...

South Korea's chief financial regulator said Wednesday that he is looking into loan and interest rates set by financial institutions amid complaints that their spread is widening, deepening the financial burden on many consumers. Jeong Eun-bo, head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), made the remarks as criticism has grown that banks and other financial firms are quicker to increase thei...

Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea plunged 24 percent in December from a year earlier as chip shortages continued to disrupt vehicle production, an industry association said Wednesday. The number of newly registered foreign vehicles fell to 23,904 units last month from 31,419 units a year ago, the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement. "Chip su...

South Korea's housing market has been stabilizing with home prices not just in Seoul but also many other local areas on a downward trend on higher taxes and stricter lending rules, the finance minister said Wednesday. The recent downward trend comes after the government adopted dozens of measures to curb skyrocketing home prices in recent years as more people rushed to take out bank loans to buy...

South Korea's wine imports soared over 70 percent in 2021 as more people enjoyed drinking at home and alone amid the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Wednesday. Asia's fourth-largest economy imported $506.2 million worth of wine in the January-November period of last year, up 76 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Korea Customs Service and industry sources. It marks the f...

South Korea's foreign reserves declined for the second straight month in December as the country redeemed some of the maturing foreign currency stabilization bonds, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country's foreign reserves came to $463.12 billion as of end-December, down $790 million from the previous month, according to the data provided by the Bank of Korea (BOK). This marked the sec...

Banks have started lending again as of Tuesday after months of temporarily suspending their household and mortgage loans, but strict standards from last year are likely to remain or get even tighter this year. NongHyup Bank, one of the five major commercial banks here, normalized lending of its entire household loan products, including mortgages on Monday. It has also decided to raise its lines ...

SEJONG -- Foreign direct investment in the nine free economic zones in South Korea surpassed a cumulative $20 billion mark since the nation started operating the FEZs 18 years ago in 2003. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the nine FEZs attracted FDI worth $1.31 billion in 2021, up 42 percent from a year earlier. This was a bounce-back after recording declines for two con...

ShinhanCard said Tuesday it had launched a nonfungible token service for clients to store their pictures using the digital assets -- a first by a local financial company. NFTs are authenticated by the blockchain, a record of transactions kept on networked computers that serves as a public ledger for verifying ownership. Each NFT has a unique digital signature and digital objects, like images and...