The daily foreign exchange (FX) trading by banks in South Korea fell 5.3 percent on-year in 2020 as the local currency rose against the US dollar, central bank data showed Thursday. The daily FX turnover came to an average $52.8 billion last year, down $2.93 billion from the previous year, according to the data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). The BOK said the drop in the daily FX turnover came as t...

South Korea’s top financial regulator said Thursday it has decided to advise major banks to maintain their dividend payouts below 20 percent of net income during the first half of this year in response to the prolonged economic fallout of COVID-19. Under the latest guidance by the Financial Services Commission, local lenders are expected to cut payments to shareholders by about 5 to 7 percentage...

Netherlands-based investor NN Investment Partners said Thursday the search for yield will make emerging markets the most attractive destination for bond investors, but that South Korea was not likely to be their first choice. “Although Korea is part of the emerging market universe in indices, it is much closer to the developed than many other emerging market universe,” Valentijn van Nieuwenhuijz...

South Korea’s venture investment set records in 2020 both in the number of deals and their value, despite the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced Wednesday. The country’s investment in startups reached 4.30 trillion won ($3.89 billion) in 2020, adding 26.8 billion won, or 0.6 percent, from the previous year. The number of investment deals also hit ...

South Korean investment firm Truston Asset Management said Wednesday that it is establishing a fund to invest in companies that have room for improvement in their environmental, social and governance standards, and to make changes through shareholder activism if necessary. The company, which managed assets worth 9.3 trillion won ($8.4 billion) as of end-2020, aims to raise some 500 billion won f...

South Korea’s market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service is slated to order local banks that sold the problematic funds structured by Lime Asset Management to compensate investors who were victims in the massive fraud, officials said Monday. Lime Asset has been under an FSS probe since July 2019 for having concealed huge losses and inflated investment returns to keep its customer base. It sus...

“It is crucial for our employees to become creative in connecting the concepts of digital and finance based on their own ‘digital literacies’ and understanding,” he added. According to industry sources, Shinhan is planning an organization reshuffle by the end of the month, to strengthen its digital businesses and online capacity. It also plans to invest 300 billion won ($271.4 million) in buildi...

A foreign investor group of South Korea-based Kyobo Life Insurance is in hot water as its plan to exit from the insurer faces a setback after an indictment of its officials, while its demand for an initial public offering by Kyobo Life since 2012 remains unfulfilled to this day. Key officials of the international investor group, led by Hong Kong-based private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners...

Upbit, a South Korean digital asset exchange, said Thursday that its Thailand unit was up and running after receiving the necessary licenses from regulators. The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission recently granted approval for Upbit Thailand in four business areas -- digital asset exchange and brokerage and digital token exchange and brokerage -- with Upbit Thailand being fully operatio...

Viva Republica, the operator of leading finance app Toss, on Wednesday announced that it plans to add 330 new staff in the first quarter ahead of the launch of an internet-only bank and an online securities arm later this year. The latest hunt for talent comes as the 6-year-old startup prepares to become the country‘s third internet-only bank, expected to launch in July, and to kick off the mobi...

Seoul-based investment firm KB Asset Management said Wednesday it had closed a 220 billion won ($200 million) bond-investing private fund in order to embolden its focus on environmental, social and governance factors. The new private fund -- the largest of its kind in Korea -- will deploy at least 70 percent of its cash to certified South Korean green, social and sustainability bonds or issuers ...

US-based investment adviser Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb has unloaded a 5.5 percent stake in Korea‘s brokerage house Shinyoung Securities, a regulatory filing showed Tuesday. The New York-based firm’s sales proceeds came to 30.4 billion won ($27.6 million) following decades of transactions involving its mutual funds, according to the filing. Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb’s ownership was reduced to 2.11...

A group of South Korean lenders pledged on Tuesday to earmark a combined $3 billion over the next five years to spur global investment into local semiconductor maker SK hynix as part of the nation’s bid to shore up growth of futuristic technology. South Korea’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission, said the lenders’ agreement with the country’s second-largest semiconductor ...

Woori Financial Group Chairman Sohn Tae-seung has urged the group‘s subsidiaries to gear up for business innovation this year by benchmarking global tech giants Amazon and Google, officials said Sunday. “Just as the innovative tech behemoths Amazon and Google did, let’s seek innovation with a mindset like it’s always day one, to get back to the basics and start work with a renewed mind and to su...

RCI Financial Services Korea, an affiliate of Renault Samsung Motors, launched a mobile app which enables customers to apply for loans remotely after signing a contract to buy a car, the firm said Friday. The new Renault Finance app is developed to apply and complete loan application without visiting dealer shops through a simple verification process online. Evaluation on loan applicants will ru...