Terraform Labs founder and CEO Do Kwon now may face severe punishment with South Korean prosecutors recently charging him for violating the capital market law, not just on fraud allegations, legal experts said Thursday. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office said Wednesday it has issued arrest warrants for Kwon and five others, including fellow Terraform labs founding member Nicholas Platias on charges of violating the capital market law. While a group of victims’ move to file a c

Woori Card has partnered with K-pop singer and actor IU for a new credit card campaign to catch eyes of Generation Z and millennial customers, the firm said Thursday. The campaign dubbed “Nu I＆U” will involve social media contents featuring the singer and a credit card with a list of perks for its users. The credit card offers its users a maximum 1 percent cashback regardless of the previous month’s total purchases. The annual fee is 12,000 won ($8.61). Other benefits includ

Hyundai Card CEO Kim Deok-hwan has resigned as chief executive at one of the largest credit card issuers in South Korea just one year after he was appointed, regulatory filings showed Tuesday. Kim officially stepped down on Friday with Hyundai Card citing “personal reasons” behind his resignation. No further elaboration was given. A local media outlet reported that Kim was recently “sued by his secretary." Born in 1972, Kim was known as the youngest CEO in the Korea cre

South Korean prosecutors are considering whether to view the troubled cryptocurrency luna as a security, a move which could put the coin developers and those complicit under scrutiny for not only fraud, but also for violations of the Capital Markets Act. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office’s Financial and Securities Crime Joint Investigation Team has met with crypto experts and financial authorities to review if luna can be categorized as a security, the prosecution said Tuesda

South Korea’s KB Financial Group said Tuesday it has recently opened the nation’s largest premium private banking branch in Seoul in a bid to provide a fuller range of services to its wealthy clients. The seven-story building, named after the bank’s recently launched premium banking service “KB Gold ＆ Wise the First,” is located in Seoul's posh district of Apgujeong. The floor space, themed on books and art, consists of 15 consulting rooms and 1,400 vaults. At the

Shin Jeong-eum, a 61-year-old Seoulite, remembers her childhood when her family was delighted with beef wrapped in a simple paper package and a carton of eggs held together by straw as Chuseok gifts. As for her, Shin's favorite moments in the 1970s were receiving new clothes from her relatives as they celebrated the traditional mid-autumn harvest festival, honoring their ancestors. “Nowadays, it’s all about gifting luxury items and we can just send the gifts after purchasing them t

Apple Pay is in the final stage of talks with local credit card issuer Hyundai Card to start its Korean services by the end of this year, according to news reports on Wednesday. Apple’s digital payments service, launched in 2014, has since expanded its Asian reach, including China, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. But it has struggled to enter Korea mainly due to a lack of technological infrastructure here. Most local retailers use the magnetic secure transmission technology, in which devic

Seoul-based private equity house MBK Partners Founder and Chairman Michael Byung-ju Kim will donate $10 million to help the renovation work of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, both the firm and the museum said Wednesday. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Michael ByungJu Kim has pledged $10 million to support the renovation of the Museum’s Oscar L. and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art," the Met said in an official press relea

South Korea’s Hana Financial Group said Sunday it plans to launch a financial aid program worth 26 trillion won ($19 billion) this month that will benefit some 700,000 vulnerable members of society annually. The program named "All Happiness Connected in Hana Finance" will focus on loan extension and cutting back interest rates for 350,000 small business owners, 90,000 mortgage borrowers and 250,000 financially vulnerable members of the population, including customers in their 20s

South Korea’s plan to launch fractional share trading this month is likely to be delayed, with authorities struggling to decide on which tax framework to adopt for the system, officials said Thursday. The struggle comes as Asia’s fourth-largest economy braces for changes in tax systems tied to stock and cryptocurrency trading. Financial authorities are currently in the process of figuring out whether to impose tax on fractional share trading as regular “stock trades” or

An international dispute settlement body’s order Wednesday that South Korea must pay a “smaller-than-expected” $216.5 million to Lone Star may seem like a reasonable resolution to a decadelong battle between the government and the US-based private equity firm. But the verdict and the 10-year-long battle itself have revealed flaws in Korea’s financial and legal system that must be fixed before it can make the progress it aspires to, experts said. “The dispute has

A South Korean court on Tuesday officially declared the bankruptcy of Optimus Asset Management, which had been mired in massive financial fraud leading to losses worth some 560 billion won ($415.8 million) for investors. The Seoul Bankruptcy Court declared the troubled asset manager bankrupt, citing its incapability to make payments due to its “heavy debt.” Optimus filed for bankruptcy with the Seoul court in June. Optimus was found to have raised 1.35 trillion won from more than 3

SK Inc., the holding company of South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate SK Group, said it plans to buy back 200 billion won ($148 million) of its own shares, which is equivalent to some 1 percent of the market cap, the firm said Tuesday. The firm’s board of directors on Aug. 30 approved the share repurchase to enhance shareholders’ value. It marks the first step to implement the shareholders return policy and strengthen the market confidence, according to the firm. The buyb

South Korean banking groups have been picking up the pace of expansion in Vietnam, eyeing financial clout in one of the fastest growing Asian economies. Shinhan Financial Group, South Korea’s No. 2 bank by total assets, is at the forefront of the movement. Its flagship commercial bank’s Vietnam subsidiary, Shinhan Bank Vietnam opened three more branches in a single day on July 29. Shinhan Bank Vietnam currently operates 46 branches across Vietnam. Shinhan Bank Vietnam plans to open f

South Korea’s financial authorities and brokerages on Monday warned of volatilities stemming from US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole last week, with the private sector expressing more skepticism towards the associated risks. Powell on Friday delivered a hawkish remark saying that the rising interest rates will cause “some pain” to the US economy and that the US Fed will use their “tools forcefully” to combat the nation’s

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong revealed that he recently went on a summer vacation with his mother for the first time in his life, local reports said Friday. The notoriously private Samsung heir told his employees that his six-day trip with his mother involved watching a lot of TV shows. The 54-year-old added that he watched dramas she recommended and once stayed in for the entire day. Lee was responding to questions from millennial and Generation Z staffers working at Samsun

　South Korea’s deputy finance policymaker was identified as the civil servant with the highest-value personal assets in the country, including shares worth some 20 billion won ($15 million) in a family business, a government ethics committee said Friday. 　Financial Services Commission Vice Chairman Kim So-young’s net assets – including real estate, stocks and savings -- amounted to a total of 29.2 billion won, making him the “richest” civil servant in the Yoon Suk

South Korea is watching closely a verdict set to be delivered by an international dispute settlement body for a decadelong dispute between the government and US private equity firm Lone Star next week. The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes’ verdict on Aug. 31 will come almost 10 years after Lone Star filed a suit against the Korean government in November 2012, seeking $4.68 billion in compensation. Lone Star claimed that the financial authorities here botched its

South Korea’s KB Financial Group on Thursday launched its new premium private banking and asset management brand to better cater to its wealthy clients. “KB Gold & Wise the First” plans to adopt a “Credit Suisse-like” model in which private bankers and asset managers from KB Kookmin Bank and KB Securities and experts from areas such as investment, tax, real estate and trusts are brought together as a single team for their clients, according to the firm. Clie

South Korean technology firms are gearing up to launch new services where users can compare different insurance products on their platforms, but the move has been met with strong resistance from traditional agents, sources said Wednesday. Financial authorities earlier this week approved local big tech firms such as Naver and Kakao to launch test-runs of their new “insurance agent” services starting from as early as October, according to the policymaking Financial Services