Giving the thumbs-up to South Korea’s capital market which is undergoing continuous reforms, the nation’s top financial regulator said Monday that foreign investors can discover fresh opportunities here.

“Expanding cooperation with startups such as fintech firms, invigorating the asset management market by converting capital flow to corporates and keeping the growth of the pension funds will benefit investors immensely,” Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo said at the 2020 Luncheon Meeting with CEOs of Foreign Financial Companies in Seoul.

The meeting was attended by officials from the FSC, watchdog Financial Supervisory Service and Yoo Kwang-yeol, head of the Financial Hub Center, along with top executives of 17 foreign banks, brokerages and asset management firms based in Korea, according to the FSC.

The Financial Hub Center, or Fn Hub Korea, is a center under the FSS that aids the launch and expansion of foreign financial institutions here.

The key agenda of the meeting was to discuss countermeasures to tackle recent changes and growing uncertainties in the global financial environment, the FSC said. The financial authorities also addressed the main issues surrounding the government’s latest financial policies and establishment of financial centers here.

As of end-2019, 163 overseas financial institutions were either operating a subsidiary or branch in Korea.

Of the total, 33 were US-based firms and three were from Canada. Institutions based in other Asian nations had the most number of branches or subsidiaries at 67 while European firms ranked No. 2 with 54.

By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)