The level of foreign debt is poised top $400 billion, complicating Seoul’s capital control efforts increasingly watched by major credit rating agencies abroad. Foreign debt in the first quarter May made the steepest hikes in three years, reaching $381.9 billion at the end of March. Noting an increase of $21.9 billion in just three months from December, the Finance Ministry predicted the figure t...

Regulator pushes banks to improve capital adequacy ratios Korea’s financial regulator said Monday it will further toughen the standards used to assess savings banks’ fiscal soundness in a bid to accelerate the cleanup of the troubled sector. “The planned assessment of 85 savings banks has started, and banks with BIS capital ratio of less than 8 percent as of late June are now required to submit...

South Korea’s finance minister said Monday that the government could carry out smoothing operations if the local currency fluctuates sharply against the U.S. dollar. “If there are steep fluctuations in currency rates, our basic stance is that we could implement smoothing operations to ease the herd behavior in the market,” Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan told reporters after a meeting with financi...

SC First Bank, the South Korean unit of Standard Chartered Plc., said Monday it had temporarily shut down operations at 43 branches in a bid to minimize the impact of a prolonged labor strike. Unionized workers at SC First Bank launched an indefinite strike on June 27 in protest of the management's move to introduce a performance-based pay system, causing bank customers to face inconvenience in ...

Shipbuilding giant STX Group on Sunday said it has sold 250 billion won ($236 million) of overseas assets to secure the funds to purchase a 15 percent stake in Hynix Semiconductor against its bidding rival, SK Group. STX Europe Holding, a wholly owned subsidiary of the STX Group, sold an almost 20 percent stake of its Singapore-based STX OSV Holdings to an investment fund to help pay for the $2....

South Korean stocks are expected to continue their upward march next week on the back of favorable market conditions, analysts said Saturday. The country's key stock index, the KOSPI, gained 2.57 percent, or 54.61 points, this week to close at 2,180.35 on Friday, despite the lingering debt crisis in Europe and a rate hike by China. Next week is packed with major events such as the central bank'...

Hana Financial Group and Lone Star Funds reached an agreement to extend a deal to buy Korea Exchange Bank within six months, Hana said Friday. Hana, the nation’s No. 4 banking group, held a meeting of its board members later in the day to review the terms of the deal. In November, Hana struck a deal with the U.S. buyout fund to acquire its controlling 51 percent stake in KEB for 4.69 trillion w...

Financial regulators plan to activate micro-loan issuances to individuals from the savings banking industry by curbing excessive competition among credit card companies. The plan comes as credit card issuers have been vying to issue loans despite customers’ low credit standings. “Though the savings banking industry has been severely damaged due to construction-related toxic loans, there are sti...

Korea's financial watchdog said it has decided to penalize SC First Bank for its violations of local banking laws such as the illegal handling of metal loan services to corporate customers. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said it will impose fines worth 4.5 million won ($4,225) and punish 41 officials of the Korean unit of Standard Chartered Plc after the bank violated regulations on met...

Prosecutors are investigating Goldman Sachs Group on allegations that the investment bank defrauded local insurers Heungkuk Life Insurance and Heungkuk Fire & Marine Insurance. The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday it was taking on complaints by the two insurers that the U.S. investment bank sold a high risk, high yielding investment product known as collateralized debt o...

The nation’s financial regulator is investigating four major commercial banks on suspicion of unauthorized lending, banking sources said Wednesday. The four facing a probe are Kookmin, Woori, Shinhan and Hana, and the Financial Supervisory Service has recently completed its preliminary examination of the banks, the sources said. The unauthorized lending practice refers to banks’ demand that bor...