President Yoon Seok-yeol has appointed a professor who specializes in insurance law and investor protection to lead the Fair Trade Commission, the presidential office said Thursday in a statement. Han Ki-jeong, who teaches commercial law at Seoul National University and led the private Korea Insurance Research Institute between 2016 and 2019, will help revitalize a free market economy the Yoon government seeks, according to the statement. “Han has long studied what consumers need and kno

A joint task force launched by the Financial Services Commission on Wednesday kicked off its first monthly meeting on setting up a framework for digital assets like bitcoin, a week after the top financial regulator said it would work to remove regulatory uncertainty facing South Korea’s crypto industry. Introducing a legal framework for cryptocurrencies is part of the larger deregulation initiative the FSC has been pursuing since President Yoon Suk-yeol, who had pledged to make that happe

The Financial Supervisory Service will look into financial institutions that handled an unusually large volume of short selling when the local markets were jumpy, the watchdog’s chief said Tuesday, as retail investors step up calls for greater oversight over the practice they say leaves them outgunned by institutional investors. Individual investors have long complained that the bearish market practice that profits from a drop in share prices is not as rewarding as it should be as regulat

More than half the companies surveyed by the Korea Enterprises Federation, one of the five major business lobby groups here, said Korea and Japan should settle their disputes and improve economic ties, especially in trade, the data showed Tuesday. Conducted from July 27 to Aug. 2, the survey polled 207 companies employing at least 30 workers and 57 percent of them backed the idea, saying efforts to take advantage of new trade deals like the RCEP and IPEF should take place once the two countries

Foreign holdings of South Koreans stocks on the benchmark Kospi dipped to 606.2 trillion won ($464.1 billion), or 30.51 percent of the total, Thursday -- the lowest level since August 2009 as fears over US Federal Reserve rate hikes and a possible recession have dampened investor optimism. Data from the Korea Exchange showed Sunday heavy net selling by foreign investors this year. They had offloaded 10.6 trillion won in shares as of Friday. The Kospi closed at 2,527.94 that day, a 15 percent dr

South Korean e-commerce giant, Coupang, raised its earnings forecast for the year after posting its first-ever profit for the entire business in the second quarter, as bigger operating cost savings and higher membership fees improved profitability, the company said Thursday. The company is betting on positive annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, reversing the previous projection for a $400 million loss. The second quarter loss narrowed to $67.14 million, down 87

Bank loans to households in South Korea fell for the first time in four months in July, as rising interest rates and tighter loan curbs prompt Koreans to refinance their budget without banks’ help, Bank of Korea data showed Wednesday. As of July, loans stood at an estimated 1,060.5 trillion won ($810.1 billion), down 300 billion won from the previous month. Mortgage loans soared 2 trillion won to 791 trillion won in July from the previous month, having risen faster than a 1.4 trillion-w

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said Monday that efforts to set up a framework for digital assets like bitcoin were underway as part of its larger deregulation initiative to help companies start new businesses without having to worry about regulatory uncertainty. At a meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol, the top financial regulator’s chief said his agency would divide cryptocurrencies into security and nonsecurity tokens, and use the existing law to regulate the former

South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang is starting a service offering loans to small businesses on its online platform while enabling its customers to pay for purchases in installments, a filing with the Financial Supervisory Service showed Monday. Coupang Financial, a subsidiary created in January of this year, will lead the new business the top financial watchdog approved Friday. Some analysts consider the expansion part of Coupang’s efforts to offset losses, which have grown over t

The International Finance Corporation said Friday that it named insider Ruth Horowitz as vice president for Asia and the Pacific, bringing in a veteran who most recently headed the group’s Asset Management Company, which invests in developing countries. Horowitz, who spent the last 13 years at the private sector investment arm of the World Bank, took office last Monday, highlighting fighting runaway fuel and food prices and climate change as her top priorities. “Now, with war-

Travelers going to South Korea will be able to bring in duty-free goods worth up to $800, up from $600, as the Korean government seeks to reflect a surge in per capita income and help ramp up sluggish international tourism amid the pandemic. The Finance Ministry said Friday that the easing of customs regulations, which last took place in 2014, includes lifting a separate cap on duty-free liquor to 2 liters from 1 liter currently, but the value cap will remain at the previous $400. The 1-liter l

Home prices could drop as much as 2.8 percent in two years once the Bank of Korea raises its policy rate by a full percentage point or 100 basis points, the central bank said in a report Wednesday. The report, which focused on analyzing how a rate change affects home prices without studying factors like mortgage rules and new supply, comes as Seoul apartment prices kept falling for the last nine weeks. Last week Seoul saw its largest weekly drop since April 2020, according to the Korea Real Est

Consumer prices in July accelerated to an almost 24-year high of 6.3 percent on higher energy and food prices, as South Korea battles soaring inflation dragging down the export-led economy. According to Statistics Korea data released Tuesday, the July consumer price index edged 0.3 percentage point higher than in June. The last time the annual price gain neared such a level was in November 1998, when it reached 6.8 percent amid the Asian financial crisis. But the pace of monthly inflation sho

Bank of Korea Gov. Rhee Chang-yong told lawmakers Monday that the central bank will deliver the usual 0.25 percentage point interest rate hikes this year, while acknowledging that the economy would fall short of the 2.7 percent annual growth for 2022. The central bank a month ago backed its biggest single rate raise of 0.5 percentage point to tame persistent inflation prompted by a global surge in materials and food costs. The bank holds three more board meetings, each in August, October and No

Foreign investors were net buyers of South Korean stocks in July, reversing their selling spree for the last six months over recession worries and looking to step in and buy on the cheap amid signs of a market bottom. According to the Korea Exchange on Sunday, foreigners purchased net 2.3 trillion won ($1.7 billion) worth of shares on the benchmark Kospi, the highest monthly volume since a 3.3 trillion-won inflow in December last year. The main board rose to 2,451.50 Friday, up 5.1 percent from

South Koreans expect prices to rise at a record level in the next 12 months and the economy to underperform, a Bank of Korea survey showed Wednesday, as the export-led economy faces shrinking growth over poor exports. In a monthly survey of 2,500 households conducted July 11-18, consumers forecast inflation to average 4.7 percent, hitting its highest level since 2008 when the central bank began releasing the data. The all-time high, up from the previous 3.9 percent in June, also marked the lar

South Korea’s worsening trade deficit is raising concerns over a growth slowdown for the export-led economy, despite unexpected growth reported in the second quarter. The Bank of Korea said Tuesday that gross domestic product for April-June rose 0.7 percent on-quarter, higher than the 0.6 percent growth in the first quarter -- fueled by the government’s decision to scrap practically all COVID-19 restrictions. “Consumer spending pushed up growth in the second

South Korea’s top financial regulator is looking to allow banks to start trading cryptocurrencies, but experts are wary of whether the agency is as committed to protecting consumers along the way, saying it has so far shown little interest in pursuing it. The latest plan the Financial Services Commission revealed last Tuesday is part of its larger deregulation initiative to loosen rules that prevent banks from expanding into businesses the agency has not authorized, such as initial coin

The higher people expect prices to soar, the worse a wage spiral becomes as rising living costs prompt bigger wages, with persistent inflation on the rise, the Bank of Korea said Monday in a report. “Prices and wages look like they have nothing to do with each other, but in the long run, data consistently shows they do,” the report said, referring to surging prices in Korea. Inflation hit a 24-year high of six percent in June, prompting the central bank to back its first-t

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering may face a court-ordered rehabilitation process unless action is taken on a monthlong strike there, the company’s main creditor Korea Development Bank said Friday. “It would be more difficult for DSME to repay its debts as the strike drags on … we’re not going to help the builder unless it gets back to work,” an executive at the state-run bank said, suggesting that the country’s third-largest shipbuilder would hav