South Korea could be home to international financial behemoths if the government avoids regulatory overlap and takes a more flexible approach to operational issues faced by foreign banks in the rulemaking process, the head of BNP Paribas South Korea said.  In an interview with The Korea Herald, Philippe Noirot, head of territory for BNP Paribas South Korea, said “overlapping regulations” may pose hurdles for foreign financial institutions’ to enter into the South Korean m

Market Feb. 28, 2021

  Kim Jung-tai, the incumbent chairman of Hana Financial Group, was officially tapped by board members to lead the banking giant for another year, the group said Thursday.  Hana Financial Group’s recommendation committee for CEO nominations had recommended Kim as the sole candidate for the next president, allowing him to clinch a fourth term in office.  Once the appointment is confirmed during a general meeting of stockholders and board of directors slated for March, Kim

Market Feb. 25, 2021

The chief of the nation’s intellectual property office vowed Wednesday to reinforce intellectual property rights protection of digital inventions to contribute to South Korea‘s efforts to become a pacesetting nation in the digital era.  “In the era of digital economy, business realms driven by digital intellectual property are forecast to expand rapidly. A transition to digital economy depends on active creation of patents for innovative digital technologies across indus

Economy Feb. 24, 2021

South Korea’s economy posted negative growth amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic last year, but it ranked third in terms of economic growth rate among major economies, data showed Tuesday.  The local economy shrank 1 percent in 2020 from a year earlier, the worst on-year growth estimate since 1998 when the gross domestic product contracted 5.1 percent in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The latest figure, however, marked the third-highest among 15 major economies, according

Economy Feb. 23, 2021

South Korea’s central bank is widely expected to freeze its base rate at a record low of 0.5 percent this week over lingering economic uncertainty with a flare-up in new coronavirus cases, experts said Monday. The Bank of Korea is slated to hold its monetary policy board meeting slated for Thursday. “Affected by the virus resurgence, the nation’s job market and private spending have remained sluggish. So, there’s a high chance for the central bank to maintain its base r

Economy Feb. 22, 2021

Tensions between the nation’s financial regulator and its central bank are escalating. The two institutions are at odds over which one should hold supervisory authority in the area of online payment settlements, which are emerging as key financial transactions in this era of the digital economy. Payment settlement is the process through which a merchant receives the money that customers have paid for a particular product or service. Responding to increased demand for online payment sett

Market Feb. 21, 2021

  As part of a move to promote gender equality at work, BNP Paribas South Korea has hosted an online event named Gender and Power Talks in partnership with law firm Shin & Kim LCC and the Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Ahead of International Women’s Day slated for March 8, leaders from the three organizations discussed measures to foster female leadership across industries in the virtual event, which was held on Wednesday.  “(BNP Paribas South Korea)

Market Feb. 19, 2021

Contactless, airport check-in systems will be set up across the country by next year, South Korea’s Vice Finance Minister said on Friday, in a bit to digitalize the nation’s social infrastructure. “By 2022, (the government) will implement a contactless check-in system at 15 airports across the nation, which automatically confirms identification of passengers via biometric data, in order to increase convenience of residents using local airports,” Vice Finance Minister K

Economy Feb. 19, 2021

Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo said Wednesday that there were no political considerations at play in the regulator’s latest decision to extend its temporary ban on short selling, stressing that the practice a “necessary” trading tactic. “Even tough retail investors have voiced against short selling, the authorities reached a conclusion that short selling is a necessary trading tactic in the stock market,” Eun said at a parliamentary briefing,

Economy Feb. 17, 2021

South Korea’s market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service on Tuesday vowed to toughen its supervision of illegal short selling this year to promote fair market competition. “We will ramp up inspections on illegal practices of short selling by strengthening the work capacity of our special investigative team in charge of detecting securities fraud,” the FSS said in its 2021 policy plan. The FSS has a team of in-house investigators focused on probing financial crime cases un

Market Feb. 16, 2021

Woori Bank’s Indonesian unit has received a higher grade in capital requirement imposed by the Southeast Asian country’s market watchdog, bringing it one step forward in expanding its business portfolio in the region, officials said Sunday. As of December last year, Bank Woori Saudara raised a combined capital of 5.2 trillion rupiah, or approximately 413 billion won, which falls under a BUKU3 rating, the third-highest in Otoritas Jasa Keuangan’s four-tier bank capital class

Market Feb. 14, 2021

A group of local retail stock traders is working on a global anti-short selling campaign that may involve forging a partnership with WallStreetBets -- a regiment of amateur investors on the US social-networking website Reddit that drew attention for taking action against sophisticated hedge funds last month. Jung Eui-jung -- head of the Korea Stockholders Alliance, which represents some 22,000 stock investors -- told The Korea Herald that he had gone to the online forum and proposed a cros

Market Feb. 12, 2021

The Financial Services Commission said Tuesday it will draft a policy framework this month to allow local platform operators, including Naver and Kakao, to enter the insurance market to expand customer access to digitized financial products. Under the envisioned plan, the financial regulator will ease the current regulations to enable the internet companies to develop and sell micro insurance products, in accordance with its “sandbox” program. The regulatory framework is aimed a

Market Feb. 9, 2021

Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo on Friday pledged all-out efforts to establish a monitoring system to detect illegal short selling before the financial regulator allows the practice to resume in May.  Short selling is a trading tactic whereby investors immediately sell borrowed stocks on a bet that share prices will fall, allowing them to later repurchase the stocks and return them to the lender. Some investors sell stocks without borrowing, known as “naked&rdqu

Market Feb. 5, 2021

South Korea’s current account surplus rose to a two-year high last year amid the prolonged economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to a sharp fall in imports and overseas trips, central bank data showed Friday.  The country’s current account surplus for 2020 amounted to $75.28 billion -- up $15.6 billion, or 26.1 percent, from the previous year -- according to preliminary figures released by the Bank of Korea.  This marked the highest current account sur

Economy Feb. 5, 2021