South Korea’s current account swung back into the black in May from a deficit the previous month that snapped 23 months of surplus booked since May 2020, but the latest surplus of $3.86 million marked a fall from a year earlier, preliminary data from the Bank of Korea showed Thursday. Soaring coal, oil and gas import costs was the reason Asia’s fourth-largest economy, which heavily relies on imp...

Hana Bank, one of the five biggest banks in South Korea, and Kyung Hee University launched a philanthropic campaign Wednesday to ask people to bequeath their fortunes to charity, amid growing awareness of charity pledges leaving behind positive social impact. The bank will help those seeking to put money into philanthropic causes draw up a financial plan in advance while the university will look...

The Bank of Korea is emboldened to raise its benchmark rate by 50 basis points for the first time next week, as consumer prices in June increased 6 percent from a year earlier, the highest level since November 1998, when they jumped 6.8 percent on-year amid the Asian financial crisis. Data from Statistics Korea released Tuesday found the June consumer price index topped the 5.4 percent marked in...

The Finance Ministry said Monday that the government would respond to any signs of economic weakness before it turns into a crisis by closely tracking indicators pointing to a worsening outlook, like inflation or recession, ahead of the Bank of Korea’s rate hike next week. The country’s five economic chiefs -- the finance minister, President Yoon Suk-yeol’s economic adviser and three separate ch...

Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said Sunday that he would help Korean companies sell more goods overseas by offering more loans at a time when Korea’s exports snapped 15 months of double-digit growth in June, stocking recession worries. The trade deficit in January-June this year reached $10.3 billion, the highest level ever recorded in the first six months of a year, despite record-high exports ...

The average daily trading volume of retail investors on the main board Kospi in June dropped to its lowest level since February 2020, data from the Korea Exchange showed Sunday. The fall comes as investors are bracing for a growth slowdown from the US Federal Reserve’s rate hikes. The value of shares investors bought and sold in a day on average on the benchmark index reached 4.3 trillion won ($...

KB Financial Group Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo said Friday that he would better serve customers by giving them what they need amid worsening inflation pushing up interest rates, at a biannual meeting with executives held in-person for the first time since January 2020. “The mission of financial institutions like us is to offer protection to clients, like having whatever they have with us stay unharm...

The US slowdown is set to cause economic headwinds for South Korea over the next year, though analysts said it would have less impact than the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Fei Xue, an Asia analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told The Korea Herald that the US and EU represent “two major export markets” for Korea and the deceleration expected to take place there soon would lead to waning de...

South Korean consumers raised their outlook this month for where inflation will be in one year to the highest level in 10 years, a Bank of Korea survey showed Wednesday, reinforcing expectations that the central bank would be emboldened to back a steeper-than-expected rate hike in July. In a monthly survey of 2,500 households conducted June 13-20, consumers forecast inflation to average 3.9 perc...

Woori Bank, one of the five largest lenders in South Korea, is under investigation over suspicious money transfers totaling 800 billion won ($623 million) as one of the bank employees is standing a separate trial on charges that he stole 61 billion won in the largest bank theft local lenders have seen. A Woori branch in Seoul had sent the money overseas in the last year in what the bank and auth...

Standard Chartered Bank Korea is offering a special interest rate of up to 1.9 percent per annum, before tax, to new customers opening a checking account by the end of this month. Account holders are eligible for the special rate up to 60 days from opening the account, as long as they keep the balance between 100 million won ($77,200) and 2 billion won. The rate is adjusted each day depending on...

The South Korean won weakened to more than 1,300 per US dollar for the first time in 13 years in onshore spot trading Thursday, breaching the key psychological threshold as recession worries boosted the dollar’s safe-haven appeal. The won lost 0.35 percent from the previous session to 1,301.8 per dollar, the lowest close since July 14, 2009, when the won dropped to 1,303 during onshore trading h...

Debt owed by South Korean households and companies in the first quarter of this year reached a combined 3,468.4 trillion won ($2.6 trillion), or 219.4 percent of South Korea’s gross domestic product, the Bank of Korea said Wednesday, warning a rate hike could worsen repayment burdens and hurt people’s purchasing power. The central bank, set to raise borrowing costs in July amid red-hot inflation...

The Bank of Korea said Tuesday that South Korea could see the annual increase in consumer prices this year top the 4.7 percent marked in 2008, the highest level in the last 20 years, as a global surge in materials and food costs adds pressure on Asia’s fourth-largest economy. “Given the surging oil prices and changes in the global economy, inflation for this year will surpass the estimate made i...

South Korea’s top financial watchdog said Monday that banks should step up efforts to protect self-employed and small business owners who are affected most by surging interest rates, at a meeting held with 17 local bank CEOs ahead of a rate decision by the Bank of Korea in July. “Rising interest rates and prices could push them into defaults and we have to be ready for that,” said Gov. Lee Bok-h...