Most Popular
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Blinken calls on China to press N. Korea to end its 'dangerous' behavior
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S. Korea, Japan could consider simplified entry agreement: Seoul official
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New celebrity-endorsed therapy for face contouring requires only a pair of rubber bands
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[Weekender] How DDP emerged as an icon of Seoul
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Tensions heighten ahead of first president-opposition chief meeting
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Doctor group's incoming head renews call for govt. to scrap medical school quota hike for dialogue
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'The Roundup: Punishment' becomes fastest 2024 film to top 2 mln admissions
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[Music in drama] An ode to childhood trauma
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New head of doctors' association vows war in case of disadvantage to medical professors
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Seoul to provide housing subsidy to married couples with newborns
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Retail investors jump into stock market on recent rally
Retail investors are flooding the stock market following a recent rally, with the number of new accounts and transactions moving up sharply, the Korea Financial Investment Association said Monday.As of Thursday, a record 25.06 million stock accounts were active. The number increased from November, when the secondary market, KOSDAQ, began to post strong gains. Some 170,000 stock trading accounts were added in October, which rose to 270,000 in November and to 220,000 in December. 280,000 accounts
Jan. 29, 2018
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Credit card spending rose last year due to long holidays
South Korea's credit card spending surged dramatically in 2017 from a year earlier due to the extended Chuseok holiday and the "golden holiday" in May, industry data showed Monday.Credit card spending soared 10.8 percent to 605 trillion won ($568 billion) last year from the previous year, the Credit Finance Association said.The rising consumption is attributed to the April 29-May 9 golden holiday and the 10-day-long Chuseok holiday that began Sept. 30. Total card spending, including cr
Jan. 29, 2018
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Coincheck to Repay Users Who Lost Money in $400 Million
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc. said it will use its own capital to reimburse customers who lost money in Friday’s $400 million theft.The Tokyo-based company will repay all 260,000 users impacted by the theft of NEM coins, at a rate of 88.549 yen (82 U.S. cents) for each coin, according to a statement posted on its website after midnight local time on Sunday. A total of 523 million coins were stolen, it said.“The timing of the reimbursement and the application process
Jan. 28, 2018
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Market remains puzzled ahead of real-name crypto coin trading
Investors, cryptocurrency exchanges and banks in South Korea appeared to be confused Sunday over the government’s push to launch a real-name trade system of digital currencies as part of efforts to tighten its grip on the fast-growing and unfettered market.Starting Tuesday, cryptocurrency purchases using local currency will be allowed only for individual accounts registered under real names. Bank accounts of digital coin buyers using local currency and of cryptocurrency exchanges must be r
Jan. 28, 2018
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Biopharmaceutical stock owners make big gains in assets
Stock values for stakeowners of biopharmaceutical companies nearly doubled over the past year, with Celltrion leading the pack, data showed Sunday.According to Chaebul.com, which tracks corporate records, 32 people each owned more than 100 billion won ($93.76 million) worth of shares in biopharmaceutical firms as of Friday's closing.Their stock values have risen 99.4 percent since Jan. 2 last year. Seo Jung-jin, chairman of Celltrion Inc., claimed 6 trillion won in shares after the stock pr
Jan. 28, 2018
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Virtual currency exchange lobby to persuade govt. not to regulate excessively
The lobby of South Korea's cryptocurrency exchange operators said Friday it will make efforts to ensure the government does not excessively restrict the trading of virtual currencies.The Seoul government has been striving to rein in the virtual currency frenzy in Asia's fourth-largest economy while contemplating a bill to ban cryptocurrency exchanges.Amid concerns over a bubble, the government last month banned the opening of new virtual accounts for cryptocurrency investors and required virtual
Jan. 26, 2018
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Seeking fool's gold, young people jump into cryptocurrency frenzy
Looking at a smartphone app showing the prices of cryptocurrencies, Lee Jae-sung sighed. The 24-year-old university student bought 5 million won ($4,666) worth of a little-known cryptocurrency called Nxt last month.To date, the cryptocurrency has lost about 64 percent of its value, and Lee has been suffering from insomnia these days."I am repeatedly asking myself whether I should sell this at a loss, but I can't make a decision," Lee said.Lee is one of many young and Internet-savvy cry
Jan. 26, 2018
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Kiwoom Securities head to lead brokerages' association
Kwon Yong-won, chief executive of Korea’s online-only brokerage Kiwoom Securities, was elected the chairman of the Korea Financial Investment Association Thursday. Starting Feb. 4, the 56-year-old will serve his three-year term for the self-regulatory organization for financial investment industry in Korea. Kwon is the fourth chairman of the association founded in 2009. Kwon earned 145 votes out of 231 participants to beat contenders, former chief Woori Investment & Securities Hwa
Jan. 25, 2018
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W11.2tr earmarked for midrange borrowers
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said Thursday it plans to circulate a combined 11.2 trillion won ($10.6 billion) this year for local retail borrowers that hold midrange credit scores while having trouble finding corresponding loans.The FSC pledged to pour a combined 8 trillion won into state-run loan products sold at banks, including those designed for refinancing. The remaining 3.2 trillion won will be spent to encourage private banking institutions to develop and sell midrang
Jan. 25, 2018
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SC Bank Korea refurbishes mobile banking app
Standard Chartered Bank Korea released updates to its flagship mobile banking app “Self Bank” on Jan. 8, almost a year after the app was released.The app is designed to allow its retail customers to buy banking services without visiting a brick-and-mortar branch. Since the app was launched in February 2017, Standard Chartered Bank Korea has sold 53,000 products ranging from checking products, deposits, savings, credit cards, consumer loans to insurance through the app. The update ena
Jan. 25, 2018
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Seoul mulls taxation on virtual currency transactions: finance minister
Korea is considering imposing taxes on virtual currency transactions as part of its efforts to curb excessively speculative investment in cryptocurrencies, the country's top economic policymaker said Thursday. "We are reviewing (taxation) because (cryptocurrency) is seen to be taxable," Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon told lawmakers. "We are looking at a variety of cases in other countries." The finance minister also stressed that virtual currencies are not legal tender, addin
Jan. 25, 2018
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Korea to begin real-name crypto coin purchases Jan. 30
South Korea’s financial watchdog on Tuesday unveiled a set of guidelines to employ a real-name transaction system for virtual coins encrypted on distributed ledger platforms like blockchain, starting Jan. 30. Once the new real-name transaction system comes into effect, cryptocurrency traders will be able to resume the purchase of encrypted coins like bitcoin, ether or ripple in Korea.Traders in Korea have faced hurdles in depositing money to buy more coins since the government in December
Jan. 23, 2018
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PM calls for tighter discipline after official found to profit from cryptocurrency info.
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon instructed the Cabinet on Tuesday to come up with stronger codes of conduct for public servants after a financial watchdog official was found to have profited from information on cryptocurrency regulations.According to a government inspection, the Financial Supervisory Service worker earned about 7 million won ($6,550) in profit from selling about half of his virtual currency holdings last month, just two days before the government announced a package of measures aimed
Jan. 23, 2018
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Banks to issue new trading accounts for cryptocurrencies next week
Six South Korean banks will begin issuing new trading accounts for cryptocurrencies next week by introducing a system that bans the use of anonymous accounts in cryptocurrency transactions, a senior financial regulator said Tuesday.When the banks introduce the system of verifying cryptocurrency investors' identification next Tuesday, current virtual accounts for virtual coins will be banned the same day, Kim Yong-beom, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, told reporters.Financial
Jan. 23, 2018
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[Advertorial] Eximbank, K-sure partner to foster builders’ overseas projects
The Export-Import Bank of Korea and Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-sure) signed a memorandum of understanding Monday to help Korean companies secure more construction and shipbuilding projects overseas and create jobs. Eun Sung-soo, chief of the Eximbank, and Moon Jae-do, head of K-sure, vowed to enhance cooperation for policy support on bidders looking to win overseas projects, in a meeting held Monday in Eximbank headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul. Eximbank and K-sure agreed to share i
Jan. 22, 2018
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Kakao Bank to start housing deposit loan service
Kakao Bank, South Korea’s biggest direct bank, announced Monday it would start selling housing deposit loan products for either a two-year period jeonse (lease with down payment) contract or monthly rent, from Tuesday.A face-to-face process when submitting documents will not be required, like other products of the online-only bank, partly with the help of scraping technologies that enable the bank to extract documents regarding housing deposit loan borrowers’ identification.The annou
Jan. 22, 2018
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Govt. to collect 24.2% of taxes on income by virtual currency exchanges
The government said Monday it will collect up to 24.2 percent of corporate and local income taxes from South Korea's cryptocurrency exchanges this year.The Seoul government has been striving to rein in the virtual currency frenzy in Asia's fourth-largest economy while contemplating a bill to ban cryptocurrency exchanges.Amid concerns over a bubble, the government last month banned the opening of new virtual accounts for cryptocurrency investors and required virtual currency traders to change the
Jan. 22, 2018
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[Kosdaq Star] Test-prep firm MegaStudyEdu surges on takeover deals
This is the 49th in a series of articles analyzing major companies traded on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market. -- Ed.On South Korea‘s second-tier stock market, not only tech and bio companies are on the rise, but also one unique industry has been steadily growing: education services. Reflecting the country’s high enthusiasm for education and aspirations for better jobs, education services companies have been gaining presence in the market dominated by tech companies. MegaStudyEdu, a test
Jan. 21, 2018
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Seoul to require banks to keep record of cryptocurrency transactions
The government plans to require banks and exchanges to keep records of cryptocurrency transactions, in a potential move to impose taxes on the largely covert deals, financial authorities said Sunday.Coming in the wake of the government’s earlier order to convert all cryptocurrency accounts into real-name accounts, the idea reflected Seoul‘s efforts to assume control of the overheated market.The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit is currently working on a set of anti-money laundering g
Jan. 21, 2018
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[Monitor] Korean cryptocurrency exchange tops world in trade volume
Among cryptocurrency exchanges around the world, the one with the largest volume of transactions is based in South Korea, showed data from tallying website CoinMarketCap. As of 10:40 a.m. Thursday, the transaction volume for 24 hours at Upbit based in South Korea reached $7.577 billion, far ahead of Hong Kong’s Binance, which ranked second.Except for the No. 1 and No. 3 spots, most exchanges with large transactions were located in Hong Kong and China. Although Upbit topped the world market
Jan. 19, 2018