A growing number of young South Koreans under 10 years old have purchased apartments across the nation with financial support from their parents, a lawmaker said Monday, raising concerns over inheritance for real estate speculation.  The number of apartment purchases by the elementary-school kids and younger came in at 552 from September 2017 to last month, which amounted to 104.7 billion won ($88.2 million), according to data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport submitt

The country’s third internet-only lender Toss Bank is slated to begin operation Tuesday, heating up the competition in the fast-growing online banking market, according to industry sources Monday. The lender, controlled by Viva Republica, the operator of fintech app Toss, will start its banking services, including offering credit loans, savings and deposits, with a primary focus on expanding mid-range interest rate loans.  Earlier in June, when the online bank received a final appro

While South Korea’s financial authorities tightened their grip on property speculation and the resulting price hikes, foreign investors turned out to have purchased local apartments worth trillions of won, a lawmaker said Wednesday citing a lack of regulations on foreign property speculators. Apartment purchases by investors from China and the US, between 2017 and May 2020, amounted to 3.16 trillion ($2.6 billion) and 2.19 trillion won, respectively, according to Rep. Kim Joo-young of t

The Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives, the nation’s leading mutual financial institution, said Tuesday it has managed to post strong profits despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the leadership of President Park Cha-hoon and Ryu Hyuk, chief executive officer of Credit & Insurance -- the KFCC’s business unit responsible for building strategies for the group’s financial management as well as operating deduction services -- the cooperative logged a net profit

The Seoul Metropolitan Government will launch its own investment organization next year dedicated to attracting foreign investment to foster startups here, as part of its goal to turn the capital city into one of the world’s top five financial hubs by 2030, Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon said Tuesday. “Based on the premise that financial competitiveness is crucial to improving a city’s global attractiveness, the Seoul city government will push for measures to turn Yeouido into a speci

On the back of soaring housing prices, a growing number of South Koreans in their 20s and 30s have rushed to buying apartments, with nearly 4 out of 10 Seoul apartments being purchased by those young buyers, data showed Thursday. According to data from the Korea Real Estate Board, people in their 30s bought a total of 12,550 homes in the capital city between January and July, which accounted for 36.9 percent of the total 34,045 properties that changed hands in the given period. Those aged 20-29

The Asian Development Bank on Wednesday maintained its previous 4 percent growth outlook for the South Korean economy this year, on the back of robust exports and mild recovery in private consumption. The ADB kept its earlier growth scenario for Korea, which was released in July. It also left its 2022 growth outlook unchanged at 3.1 percent, according to the bank’s report titled “Asian Development Outlook Update.” However, it forecast that Korea’s inflation rate will

The Export-Import Bank of Korea said Wednesday it will offer more than $300 million in loans to the Egyptian government’s railway modernization project. The state-run policy lender plans to supply a combined $312.2 million for the African nation through the “Economic Development Cooperation Fund” as well as the “Economic Development Promotion Facility.”  Launched in 1987, the EDCF is aimed at helping poor and less developed countries by providing low-inter

  A green fund jointly invested in by two South Korean banking giants -- KB and Shinhan-- will partly finance a renewable energy project in Sweden, officials said Thursday.  The financial holding firms invested a combined 80 billion won ($68.4 million) in the Global Green Energy Partnership Fund set up in April last year. Korea Midland Power, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Sprott Korea Investment also joined the fund designed to facilitate development of renewable energy across

Koh Seung-beom, the new chairman of the policymaking Financial Services Commission, met with the heads of South Korea’s five biggest banking groups on Friday to discuss whether to further put off loan repayment schedules for households and companies reeling from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. No conclusion has been reached yet, but Koh and the group executives agreed on the importance of inclusive financial policies to boost “cooperation between economic players for mutual

The Export-Import Bank of Korea on Thursday held a joint seminar with the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy to discuss business opportunities in Southeast and South Asia.  The event was aimed at supporting domestic companies’ entry to four major countries in the region -- Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Bangladesh -- which have come into the limelight in the wake of the government’s “New Southern Policy,” the state-run bank said in a statement. 

Amid the government’s move to bolster household debt management, the Financial Supervisory Service said Tuesday it has handed down a warning to KB Savings Bank over its loose screening for unsecured loans. KB Savings Bank turned out to have increased the amount of credit loans allowed for households since July last year by raising its lending programs’ loan limit and offering a discounted interest rate, without a strict review process led by the executive meeting, a FSS official sai

Amid growing pressure from the government’s tightened grip on soaring household debt, South Korean banks’ lending rates sharply edged up in recent months, data showed Sunday.  The adjustable rate charged on mortgage loans extended by the nation’s four major banks -- KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan, Hana and Woori -- remained between 2.80 percent and 4.30 percent, as of Friday. Both the bottom and upper ends of the range rose 0.5 percentage point from 2.35 to 3.88 percent estim

South Korea, one of the world‘s fastest aging societies, is facing a steep rise in its public pension payment, data showed Sunday.  Nearly 60 trillion won ($53.76 billion) will be taken out from the nation’s four public pension programs, including the national pension, government employees pension, military personnel pension, and private school teachers pension, in 2022, up 6.2 percent from this year’s 55.8 trillion won, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Econo

Koh Seung-beom, the new chairman of the policymaking Financial Services Commission, vowed Thursday to bolster cooperation with the market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service in a gesture to ease the long-standing power struggle between the two agencies. “I’ve stressed that the FSC and FSS should move in unison. As the FSC’s new head, I will ramp up efforts to strengthen communication with the FSS’ chairman in terms of promoting financial policies,” Koh told repo

올해 초 게임스톱 사태로 뉴욕증시를 달궜던 월스트리트베츠 커뮤니티의 설립자 제이미 로고진스키(Jaime Rogozinski)가 한국주식투자자연합회가 주도하는 반공매도 운동에 지지를 표명했다.  로고진스키(39)는 이날 코리아헤럴드와의 인터뷰에서 “최근 한국 개인투자자들 사이에서 확산되고 있는 해외∙기관투자자 중심 공매도 세력에 대한 부정적 시각에 공감한다”며 “궁극적으로 전세계 개인투자자들의 권리를 위해 움직이는 월스트리트베츠는 어떤 식으로든 한투연의 반공매도 운동에 힘을 보태고 싶다”고 말했다. 그는 또 “금융당국이 일방적으로 추진하는 하향식(Top-down) 제도 개선을 기다리고 있기보단 보통의 사람들이 목소리를 내는 (Bottom-up)의 운동이야말로 금융 시장의 건전한 질서를 유지하는 데 효과적”이라고 덧붙였다.  미국 개미들의 성지로 불리는 월스트리트베츠는 2012년 미주개발은행에

The way to create a fair market for all is to empower individual investors to keep bureaucratic power in check, the founder of WallStreetBets, a group of US retail investors behind the GameStop saga, told The Korea Herald in a recent interview. Vowing to support an anti-short selling campaign in Korea, WallStreetBets Founder Jaime Rogozinski said he understands the nature of South Korea‘s negative public sentiment toward some foreign institutions. “I agree with negative public sent

In an attempt to deter massive short selling of shares of anti-cancer drugmaker HLB, an army of some 2,200 retail investors flocked to the tech-heavy Kosdaq, 30 minutes before market closing on July 15.  Dubbed the “K-stop movement,” the campaign mimicked a surprising case of retail investors in the US that thwarted hedge funds’ sophisticated plan of betting on the price fall of video game retailer GameStop. But the Korean version of the GameStop buying frenzy ended in

South Korea’s national debt per person is expected to grow at a fast clip to reach 100 million won ($85,800) in 2038 as a result of government’s expansionary spending to keep its economic growth in line with an aging population, a study showed Monday. Illustrating 2038 as the year when a newborn this year graduates from high school, the Korea Economic Research Institute, a local think tank, warned that future generations will be placed with a heavy financial burden even before th

Financial Services Commission Chairman nominee Koh Seung-beom said Friday that the financial regulator plans to take additional policy actions to curb a sustained increase in household debt, citing high indebtedness as the main drag on Asia‘s fourth-largest economy. “The government unveiled a set of steps to rein in household debt in April, but the economic fallout from the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has continued to drive up the debt growth,” Koh said in a parliamentary hear