Real estate-related loans take the lion's share of South Korean banks' lending to self-employed business owners, a report showed Monday, which experts say could pose a systemic threat to the financial system.

Twelve local banks' lending to one-man operations came to 185.5 trillion won ($164 billion) as of end-June this year, up 7.8 trillion won from six months earlier and accounting for 18 percent of their total household loans, according to the report by credit appraiser Korea Ratings.

Property and rental business owners took 39.4 percent of the total, followed by manufacturers with 17.3 percent and wholesalers and retail business owners with 16 percent.

Analysts said those self-employed borrowers could take a hit from a business slump because their companies are very sensitive to how the real estate market and domestic demand fare.

"Should the economy lapse into a deeper slump or the housing and property markets atrophy down the road, self-employed borrowers could face financial troubles, posing a risk to the domestic banking system. The country's financial watchdog needs to keep closer tabs on such loans," said Kim Jung-hyun, a researcher at Korea Ratings.

Yet there is a bright spot. The delinquency rate of bank loans to the self-employed came to 0.4 percent as of the end of June.

Experts, however, have voiced concern over the rapid increase in the amount of nonbank financial institutions' lending to self-employed business owners.

According to Hana Institute of Finance, loans extended by savings banks and other nonbank lenders to self-employed people came to 39.7 trillion won in the first quarter of this year, up 9.9 trillion won from a year earlier.

Local financial institutions' lending to self-employed people has been on a fast rise as baby boomers born in the 1950s and 1960s have been in a rush to start small businesses after retirement.  (Yonhap)