A joint task force launched by the Financial Services Commission on Wednesday kicked off its first monthly meeting on setting up a framework for digital assets like bitcoin, a week after the top financial regulator said it would work to remove regulatory uncertainty facing South Korea’s crypto industry. Introducing a legal framework for cryptocurrencies is part of the larger deregulation initiat...

The Financial Supervisory Service will look into financial institutions that handled an unusually large volume of short selling when the local markets were jumpy, the watchdog’s chief said Tuesday, as retail investors step up calls for greater oversight over the practice they say leaves them outgunned by institutional investors. Individual investors have long complained that the bearish market p...

More than half the companies surveyed by the Korea Enterprise Federation, one of the five major business lobby groups here, said Korea and Japan should settle their disputes and improve economic ties, especially in trade, the data showed Tuesday. Conducted from July 27 to Aug. 2, the survey polled 207 companies employing at least 30 workers and 57 percent of them backed the idea, saying efforts ...

Foreign holdings of South Koreans stocks on the benchmark Kospi dipped to 606.2 trillion won ($464.1 billion), or 30.51 percent of the total, Thursday -- the lowest level since August 2009 as fears over US Federal Reserve rate hikes and a possible recession have dampened investor optimism. Data from the Korea Exchange showed Sunday heavy net selling by foreign investors this year. They had offlo...

South Korean e-commerce giant, Coupang, raised its earnings forecast for the year after posting its first-ever profit for the entire business in the second quarter, as bigger operating cost savings and higher membership fees improved profitability, the company said Thursday. The company is betting on positive annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, reversing the prev...

Bank loans to households in South Korea fell for the first time in four months in July, as rising interest rates and tighter loan curbs prompt Koreans to refinance their budget without banks’ help, Bank of Korea data showed Wednesday. As of July, loans stood at an estimated 1,060.5 trillion won ($810.1 billion), down 300 billion won from the previous month. Mortgage loans soared 2 trillion won ...

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said Monday that efforts to set up a framework for digital assets like bitcoin were underway as part of its larger deregulation initiative to help companies start new businesses without having to worry about regulatory uncertainty. At a meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol, the top financial regulator’s chief said his agency would divide cryptocurrenci...

South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang is starting a service offering loans to small businesses on its online platform while enabling its customers to pay for purchases in installments, a filing with the Financial Supervisory Service showed Monday. Coupang Financial, a subsidiary created in January of this year, will lead the new business the top financial watchdog approved Friday. Some analysts ...

The International Finance Corporation said Friday that it named insider Ruth Horowitz as vice president for Asia and the Pacific, bringing in a veteran who most recently headed the group’s Asset Management Company, which invests in developing countries. Horowitz, who spent the last 13 years at the private sector investment arm of the World Bank, took office last Monday, highlighting fighting run...

Travelers going to South Korea will be able to bring in duty-free goods worth up to $800, up from $600, as the Korean government seeks to reflect a surge in per capita income and help ramp up sluggish international tourism amid the pandemic. The Finance Ministry said Friday that the easing of customs regulations, which last took place in 2014, includes lifting a separate cap on duty-free liquor ...

Home prices could drop as much as 2.8 percent in two years once the Bank of Korea raises its policy rate by a full percentage point or 100 basis points, the central bank said in a report Wednesday. The report, which focused on analyzing how a rate change affects home prices without studying factors like mortgage rules and new supply, comes as Seoul apartment prices kept falling for the last nine...

Consumer prices in July accelerated to an almost 24-year high of 6.3 percent on higher energy and food prices, as South Korea battles soaring inflation dragging down the export-led economy. According to Statistics Korea data released Tuesday, the July consumer price index edged 0.3 percentage point higher than in June. The last time the annual price gain neared such a level was in November 1998,...

Bank of Korea Gov. Rhee Chang-yong told lawmakers Monday that the central bank will deliver the usual 0.25 percentage point interest rate hikes this year, while acknowledging that the economy would fall short of the 2.7 percent annual growth for 2022. The central bank a month ago backed its biggest single rate raise of 0.5 percentage point to tame persistent inflation prompted by a global surge ...

Foreign investors were net buyers of South Korean stocks in July, reversing their selling spree for the last six months over recession worries and looking to step in and buy on the cheap amid signs of a market bottom. According to the Korea Exchange on Sunday, foreigners purchased net 2.3 trillion won ($1.7 billion) worth of shares on the benchmark Kospi, the highest monthly volume since a 3.3 t...

South Koreans expect prices to rise at a record level in the next 12 months and the economy to underperform, a Bank of Korea survey showed Wednesday, as the export-led economy faces shrinking growth over poor exports. In a monthly survey of 2,500 households conducted July 11-18, consumers forecast inflation to average 4.7 percent, hitting its highest level since 2008 when the central bank began ...