Employee crime cost banks W500b since 2016

South Korean banks and their customers lost nearly 500 billion won ($428 million) from employees’ financial crimes -- including embezzlement and fraud -- in the last five years, data compiled by the nation’s financial watchdog showed Sunday. Twenty local lenders saw losses worth a combined 488.4 billion won through 186 cases from 2016 to June this year, according to data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to Rep. Lee Young, a lawmaker of the main opposition People Power

Oct. 4, 2020

S. Korea to conduct population census this month amid pandemic

SEJONG -- South Korea will launch a national census this month, with census workers taking extra precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic, Statistics Korea said Sunday. The nation conducts a population census every five years, and this year's survey includes 27,000 census workers who will carry out door-to-door interviews with residents. To reduce door-to-door visits, people will be encouraged to use mobile phones, fixed-line telephones and personal computers to register their personal, fami

Oct. 4, 2020

[Herald Interview] Why data centers matter to foreign investors

After recent success in the market for Seoul office space, London-based investment firm Actis is looking to further invest in Seoul area real estate, this time with a focus on industrial assets. The company is among those looking to invest in data centers in South Korea, as demand spikes. As server requirements expand beyond what companies can accommodate in their main offices, firms are looking to relocate their servers to the cloud or a third-party facility. Both options require data cente

Oct. 4, 2020

SK hynix to post mediocre Q3 earnings on weak chip prices: analysts

SK hynix Inc., South Korea's No. 2 chipmaker, is expected to report mediocre third-quarter earnings in the face of memory price decline, analysts here said Sunday. SK hynix was projected to log 7.9 trillion won ($6.7 billion) in sales in the July-September period, up 15.5 percent from a year earlier, while operating profit was estimated to surge 183 percent on-year to 1.3 trillion won over the period, according to Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency, which compiled dat

Oct. 4, 2020

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra's camera rated best performer: report

Samsung Electronics Co.'s latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, topped the list of handsets with the best-performing cameras available in the market, a report showed Sunday. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, a high-end version of Samsung's phablet series, posted the highest marks among the latest smartphones, according to the report by US Consumer Reports. The high-end Note 20 Ultra has a 108MP wide-angle lens as well as 12MP telephoto and ultrawide cameras on the back. It features a m

Oct. 4, 2020

LG to launch new rotating-screen smartphone this week

LG Electronics Inc. said Sunday its new dual-screen smartphone will go on sale in South Korea this week as the tech firm aims to boost its handset sales amid the pandemic. The Wing will hit local shelves on Tuesday, with a price tag of 1,098,900 won ($940), according to LG. In the United States, the Wing will be released on Oct. 15, the company added. LG already announced there would be no preorder reservations for the Wing. Instead, the company decided to hold a promotion for the full mont

Oct. 4, 2020

S. Korea fares better than other OECD members in Q2

South Korea performed relatively better in terms of economic growth over the second quarter of the year compared to other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), data showed Sunday. South Korea's economy contracted 3.2 percent on-year in the April-June period, which marked the smallest decrease among the 36 member countries of the Paris-based organization, according to the data compiled by the Bank of Korea. Over the cited period, China, which is not a memb

Oct. 4, 2020

Department stores renovate outlets targeting young customers

Major local department stores have renovated their outlets in bustling areas and realigned sales sections in an effort to attract a new clan of young customers amid faltering sales hit by the new coronavirus outbreak, industry sources said Sunday. Industry leader Lotte Department Store and its main rivals Shinsegae and Hyundai department stores are targeting the MZ generation, those born between 1980 and the early 2000s as a combination of millennials and Generation Z. Local retailers are scra

Oct. 4, 2020

EV competition gets tougher in Korea

The electric vehicle competition in South Korea is becoming fiercer with more local and foreign automotive brands launching their new electric cars in line with government support and the global environmental trends. In the first half of this year, 22,267 electric vehicles were sold here, up 23 percent from the same period last year, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, although sales of EV passenger cars among them slightly declined 2.7 percent. The surge was mainly

Oct. 3, 2020

Nonmonetary institutions expand loan supplies, while banks tighten grip over lending

While Korea’s major lenders are gesturing to tighten their loan extensions in apparent response to financial authorities’ regulatory efforts, nonmonetary institutions are striving to expand their loan supplies, seeking to absorb market demand. Several savings banks, insurers and e-payment service operators ran special promotional events throughout the last two weeks of September, ahead of the Chuseok holiday, offering cash back or other benefits to potential credit loan borrowers.

Oct. 3, 2020

Air traffic to stay below pre-pandemic levels next year

Airline traffic in South Korea and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region will remain well below 2019 levels next year due to the coronavirus's impact on the airline industry, according to a global ratings agency Saturday. The pace of the recovery will depend on each market's relative success in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control to help improve passenger confidence and reduce the risk of further travel restrictions, Fitch Ratings said. "Airline passenger volume could impro

Oct. 3, 2020

Korean chipmakers to benefit from US restrictions on China's SMIC: analysts

South Korea's chipmakers are expected to benefit from the United States' export restrictions against China's leading foundry firm, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), analysts here said Saturday, as the ban could give them more opportunities to secure orders. The US Commerce Department recently added SMIC to its blacklist, saying that exports to the Chinese firm pose an "unacceptable risk" of being used for Beijing's military activities. The move prevents US

Oct. 3, 2020

Rate of workers taking child care leave still low in private sector: lawmaker

Although child care leave was introduced by the country more than 30 years ago, the rate of workers who use such leave at private companies is still significantly lower than that of civil servants, a lawmaker said on Saturday, citing recent official data. A total of 4.5 percent, or more than 54,800, of about 1.22 million government employee pension holders, were on child care leave as of June this year, Rep. Kang Byung-won of the ruling Democratic Party said. He cited data from the Korea Worke

Oct. 3, 2020

Trump diagnosis to strengthen dollar, but high market volatility not likely: experts

US President Donald Trump's infection with the new coronavirus is expected to strengthen the dollar due to investors' chasing after safe assets, but financial markets are not likely to undergo high volatility, market experts here said Saturday. Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, sending Wall Street's main stock indexes lower. The dollar index, a gauge of the greenback's value against a basket of six foreign currencies, rose 0.14 percent. Analysts said Tr

Oct. 3, 2020

S. Korean bio firms in race for COVID-19 treatment, vaccine development

South Korean pharmaceutical companies have joined the global race to develop vaccines and treatments for the novel coronavirus, and several of them have received approval for clinical trials from the country's drug safety agency. Among the front-runners is Celltrion Inc.'s antiviral antibody treatment candidate called CT-P59 that is currently undergoing phase two and three trials both at home and abroad. Celltrion said it has completed phase one clinical trials on 32 healthy adults in the coun

Oct. 3, 2020

S. Korea extends incentives for primary dealers to stabilize bond market

South Korea has extended incentive programs for primary dealers in state bond auctions until the end of this year, as part of its efforts to stabilize the bond market, according to the finance ministry Saturday. The ministry launched the incentive programs for primary dealers, who buy state bonds directly from the government and sell them to the market, in April this year as it sought to stabilize the bond market in the face of a hike in sales of state bonds to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Oct. 3, 2020

US retail sales of Hyundai Motor rise 7% on-yr in Q3

Retail sales of Hyundai Motor Co. in the United States rose 7 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier on rising demand for its sport utility vehicles (SUVs), the carmaker's US unit said Friday (Korean time). Hyundai sold a total of 170,838 units stateside in the July-September period, down 1 percent, or 2,200, from a year earlier, according to a release by Hyundai Motor America on its website. But its retail sales reached 161,254 units over the three months, up 7 percent from the same

Oct. 2, 2020

[News Focus] Why are Koreans loyal to Korean cigarettes?

Smoking culture in South Korea has seen a great change in the past decades. Smoking indoors and in public areas have been banned, and the number of smokers has been decreasing amid rising health consciousness. New preferences for flavored cigarettes and less smelly products are proving popular, as well as technologies developed to introduce new ways of using the tobacco leaves, by heating and not burning. Still, one thing in Korea remains the same. Korean people are loyal to Korean cigarettes

Oct. 2, 2020

Will Big Hit log record-breaking IPO subscription?

Like it did in the global entertainment scene, the agency behind K-pop sensation BTS is likely to wow South Korea’s stock market and its investors with what is widely expected to be the biggest initial public offering of the year. A total of 1,420 domestic and foreign institutional investors, including BlackRock and Singapore’s GIC, participated in the two-day book building, which wrapped up on Sept. 25. Competition for the 4.27 million shares, 60 percent of the new shares issued,

Oct. 2, 2020

South Korea's first-ever smart project soon to be in action

South Korea’s first smart city project, involving an area of 2,743,000 square meters in Sejong, is expected to take shape soon as local firms have recently joined the bidding competition. Other smart city projects, including one in Busan, are expected to follow as well. Parties that placed bids include a group led by LG CNS and KT-Hyundai Motor consortiums, according to sources familiar with the pilot smart city project. The successful bidder will work on this 2.5 trillion won ($2.1 bil

Oct. 2, 2020