South Korea plans to restrict domestic and foreign banks from investing in foreign currency bonds sold within the country for the purpose of won conversion, in a bid to curb short-term foreign debt, the central bank said Tuesday. Since May, the Bank of Korea (BOK) and the financial watchdog have been inspecting banks' handling of so-called "kimchi bonds," foreign-currency debt sold by local and...

Foreign investors are expected to scoop more than half of the coming dividends at Korea’s four major financial holdings companies this year, spurring concerns about capital flight in the industry increasingly tapped by foreign investors. A study by Daishin Securities Co. said Monday that 53 percent, or 1.24 trillion won ($1.17 billion), of the total net profit set aside as dividends at the four ...

Flawed recruitment methods render system virtually meaningless Outside directors at South Korea’s banks and financial firms have been mostly nominated by their largest shareholders and chief executives, undercutting their roles as corporate watchdogs, financial regulators’ data showed on Sunday. Officially, a neutral committee is supposed to name eligible outside directors, whose primary functi...

Total investment transactions per year surpass $18.9 trillion The amount of investment circulating in the South Korean stock, bond and derivatives markets topped 20,000 trillion won ($18.9 trillion) per year, government data showed on Sunday. The Financial Supervisory Service said investment transactions between April 2010 and March 2011 totaled 22,378 trillion won, marking an increase of 500 p...

Economists say debt may cool business sentiment in second half Economists expect inflation to cool with the arrival of harvest season but cautiously forecast that business sentiment will lose steam in the second half of the year on debt both at home and abroad. The central bank froze its policy rate at 3.25 percent Thursday even after having an inflation rate above its 3 percent target range fo...

Korean banks’ short-term foreign borrowing rose in June as lenders rushed to secure foreign currency funds amid worries the eurozone debt crisis may worsen, the financial watchdog said Thursday. A total of 16 local banks refinanced 107.4 percent of their maturing short-term foreign debt through fresh borrowing in June, up from 94.9 percent in the previous month, according to the Financial Superv...

Troubled companies to be shut down Korea’s creditor banks have singled out some 30 large firms that should either go through a workout program or be forced out of the market. The names of the companies in question, however, remain undisclosed. According to banking sources on Wednesday, local creditor banks completed the evaluation of companies whose loans exceed 50 billion won ($47 million) in ...

Korea’s money supply grew at the slowest clip in more than seven years in May as the government’s tax receipt rose and foreign stock funds flowed out of the country, the central bank said Wednesday. The country’s M2, a narrow measure of its money supply, reached 1,690.5 trillion won ($1,587 trillion) in May, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea. The May number slow...

LG Display Co., the world’s second-largest maker of liquid crystal display panels, will likely break ground on a new plant in China before December, an industry source said Wednesday. The company pushed back an initial plan to start construction of its eighth generation LCD plant in Guangzhou during the first half of this year, as panel prices continued to trend downwards. Despite the downturn ...

Cooperative is in process of drastic restructuring to spin off financial operation into separate unit The capital owned by South Korea’s state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, stood at 16.1 trillion won ($15.22 billion) as of May, sparking fresh debate about how much the government should fork out to help it split up its units smoothly. Nonghyup is now drawing up a...

Korea’s imports of pork and beef surged in the first half of the year from a year earlier due to the spread of foot-and-mouth disease that led to the culling of millions of animals here, a state agency said Tuesday. South Korea imported 219,681 tons of pork in the January-June period, up 120 percent from 99,899 tons a year earlier, according to the Animal, Plant and Fisheries Quarantine and Insp...

Korea’s central bank is widely expected to freeze the key interest rate for July following a rate hike in June due to growing household debt and lingering external economic uncertainty, a poll showed Tuesday. Eighteen out of 19 economists predicted that the Bank of Korea will freeze the benchmark seven-day repo rate at 3.25 percent on Thursday, according to the survey by Yonhap Infomax, the fina...