Kim Joo-hyun. (FSC)
Kim Joo-hyun, chairman of the Credit Finance Association and a former bureaucrat experienced in crisis management at the Financial Services Commission, was tapped to lead the top financial policymaker under the Yoon Suk-yeol government.
Kim helped South Korea ride out the 2008 financial crisis as the inaugural chief of policy at the FSC, which was set up in January that year as part of a government reshuffle carried out by then-President Lee Myung-bak, who took office a month later.
In 2011, Kim led a team dedicated to restructuring savings banks at the risk of defaults. The following year, he worked on privatizing Woori Bank, one of five major Korean banks the government had bailed out with taxpayers’ money during the Asian Financial crisis in the late 1990s.
Kim is also versed in the ways the government should deal with growing household credit, having studied the issue while serving as the head of Woori Bank’s research institute – a job he took in 2016 before he assumed his current role as chairman at the CFA, a group of local credit companies.
Kim’s appointment comes as President Yoon is gathering forces to steer Asia’s fourth-largest economy clear of persistent inflation and anemic growth to follow, if prices are not brought down in a timely manner.
Kim entered into public service in the same year Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho began his public career. Many see this as a sign of Yoon’s commitment to delivering a team that would avoid initial policy missteps, since members on board already have working ties to one another.
By Choi Si-young (
siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com)