South Korea was found to have the world’s seventh-highest ratio of services provided by “shadow banks” -- referring to financial institutions that are not actually banks but deliver similar roles -- to gross domestic product.

The Bank of Korea said on Thursday that in 2013, the volume of financial services offered by local shadow banks surpassed 1.5 quadrillion ($1.4 trillion) to exceed the nation‘s nominal GDP. The figure also reflected an 11.2 percent increase from 2012, the central bank said.

Brokerages, money market funds and trust funds were among the shadow banks that were found to be the most dominant, the data showed.