South Korea has yet to arrive at a stage where the option of a “big step” or half a percentage point rate hike can be completely ruled out, with the possibility of higher inflationary pressure looming over the economy, the nation’s central bank chief said Monday. Following his breakfast meeting with Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho, Bank of Korea Gov. Rhee Chang-yong told reporters the uncertainties surrounding Korea’s inflation is keeping the central bank from taking the

When Psy’s supercharged “Gangnam Style” rose to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2012, nobody expected it to spark K-pop’s long-running, global popularity. Exactly a decade later, an Oklahoma-based exchange-traded fund issuer has decided to bring the idea of investing in K-pop-related businesses to the US. “The K-pop movement is still growing here in the US, and we think it is well known enough now that US investors will find this intriguing,” J. Garrett

An employee at Woori Bank embezzled 490 million won ($380,000) earlier this year, reports said Thursday, dampening the lender’s struggle to rebuild its reputation after a separate 60 billion won employee theft was uncovered last month. The employee, whose identity was withheld, stole the money by withdrawing from automatic teller machines from mid-January to early February. Woori recently found out about the theft through internal auditing. The bank detected irregular activities in relat

South Korea’s financial authorities recently returned over 61.4 billion won ($48.84 million) owed to Iran’s Dayyani Group, the amount that was stolen in an embezzlement scheme here between late 2012 and 2018, sources said Tuesday. The policymaking Financial Services Commission has returned most of the total 73 billion won owed to Dayyani’s consumer electronics arm, Entekhab, as compensation over the Iranian business’ failed takeover of Daewoo Electronics back in 2010.

Ahead of the scheduled South Korea-US summit next week, some lawmakers and experts have been calling for a revival of the bilateral currency swap as a countermeasure to the growing signs of a weakening won, reports said Monday. South Korean market was rattled on Friday when its local currency hit its lowest point in over two years, trading at 1,272.7 won against the US greenback at around 3:30 p.m. It eclipsed the previous low of 1,285.7 won against the US dollar reached in March 19, 2020 when

Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byeong met with the UK Environment Minister Zac Goldsmith and British Ambassador to Korea Colin Crooks to discuss the role of the finance sector in combating climate change and biodiversity loss, the firm said Sunday. In the meeting held Friday, Goldsmith was briefed on Shinhan’s Zero-Carbon Drive, which includes the banking group’s goal to reduce carbon emissions by 46 percent in 2030 and 88 percent in 2040 in line with the landmark 2016 P

The US Federal Reserve’s biggest rate hike in 22 years poses a dilemma for South Korea’s central bank in adjusting the pace of its monetary tightening and for local businesses seeking to go public, experts said Friday. The Fed’s decision to raise its base rate by half a percentage point on Wednesday (Eastern Standard Time) that set its target federal funds rate to a range between 0.75 percent and 1 percent has presented new hurdles for the Bank of Korea, which is wary of the g

South Korea is considering boosting assistance to Ukraine, Seoul's top trade official said Wednesday, as Western countries provided weapons and other support to help Ukraine defend against the Russian invasion. South Korea has provided $40 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, 65 non-lethal military items and various support for Ukraine refugees. "We are considering continuing to expand assistance to Ukraine," Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said during a virtual meeting with tra

Low borrowing cost during the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed millennials and Generation Z in South Korea to invest in stocks and cryptocurrencies. It was then that fractional investment platforms began to catch the eyes of the young investors, luring them with trendy items and the idea they could profit off of their pocket money. Musicow, the nation’s first music copyright trading platform that has amassed more than 1 million users as of February has become a major fractional investment pl

South Korea’s financial authorities failed to notice a mammoth embezzlement scheme at a top bank here, in which an employee withdrew a combined 61.4 billion won ($48.84 million) from 2012 to 2018, despite carrying out 11 audits during the period, sources said Monday. 　 Police arrested the employee surnamed Jeon, who is in his 40s, last Wednesday mere hours after Woori Bank had reported the theft. Jeon -- who had worked at Woori Bank for almost a decade -- turned himself in. The employee

South Korea’s economy expanded by a lackluster 0.7 percent in the first three months of this year, compared with the previous quarter, weighed down by the spread of the omicron variant and the risks stemming from the Ukraine crisis, central bank data showed Tuesday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy’s growth momentum nearly halved compared with the fourth quarter of 2021, when it saw a 1.2 percent expansion, preliminary data from the Bank of Korea showed. In terms of on-year growt

What distinguishes Antler from most startup accelerators is that it is interested in funding startups at a very early, pre-seed stage. It works as a matchmaker for teams, helps them receive funds, then pushes them out into society as a full-fledged business -– all in six months. And it intends to do exactly so in South Korea, where startups’ humble beginnings remain reliant on the generosity of families and friends. “Once an innovator decides to launch his or her own busine

South Korea’s KB Financial Group outperformed its local rivals, posting a record net profit for the first three months of the year as the banking industry’s overall performance was bolstered by a surge in interest and fee revenue, regulatory filings showed Friday. KB’s net income gained 14.4 percent on-year to 1.45 trillion won ($1.17 billion) in the January-March period. Operating income gained 8.9 percent on-year to 1.9 trillion won in the cited period. Interest income inc

South Korean tech behemoth Samsung Electronics saw its presence on the main bourse drop to the lowest in 34 months in terms of market capitalization, data showed Thursday, with analysts pointing to volatilities caused by the global supply bottleneck and foreigners’ selling spree. Samsung’s value stood at some 402.9 trillion won ($325.7 billion) as of April 14, accounting for 18.91 percent of the Kospi’s total market value of 2,131 trillion won, according to data provided by t

South Korean authorities are considering to classify Dunamu -- the operator of the nation’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Upbit -- as a “large business,” which would put the firm under further government scrutiny, sources said Wednesday. The Fair Trade Commission annually reviews businesses with a total asset over 5 trillion won ($4.03 billion) on whether they should be subject to stricter regulations. Those who are deemed as large businesses – firms with assets of mor

South Korea’s central bank plans to give appropriate “signals” to quell inflationary pressure, the nominee for the Bank of Korea chief said Tuesday, confirming his stance for further rate hikes in months to come. Rhee Chang-yong, former director of the Asia and Pacific department at the International Monetary Fund, told lawmakers that the central bank will focus on placing a cap on the high inflationary pressure through “signals” at the moment, even if the move may

It was 2003, with South Korea still clinging to the euphoria of the 2002 World Cup, when the official road map to making Seoul Asia’s financial center was first announced. Hope was in the air and it quickly became a key task for current Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who previously served as the city’s mayor from 2006 to 2011. But the hurdles were too high. Global financial institutions were put off by Korea’s rigid labor market and tight, yet somewhat vague regulations, despite the geopo

South Korea received some 33 percent less foreign direct “greenfield” investments as of 2020, compared with the amount before the start of the US-China trade war in March 2018, a report showed Sunday. Greenfield investment refers to a type of foreign direct investment in which a parent company sets up a new affiliate in a different country rather than buying one and builds its own operations from the ground up. “When three-year greenfield FDIs before and after the conflict a

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of suffering for all, but it has offered an unexpected opportunity too -- to experience what relaxed mornings are like on weekdays. Without having to take that subway from hell while suppressing a hangover from the company dinner the night before, not to mention the shirt-ironing and face-to-face meetings, many workers in South Korea -- known as one of the hardest working countries in the world -- spent more than two years free from fitting themselves into

South Korea’s central bank on Thursday raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.5 percent, with an official warning of growing inflationary pressure and slower-than-expected economic expansion. The Bank of Korea’s six-member monetary policy board unanimously voted to raise the base rate to 1.5 percent -- the highest level since July 2019 –- during a rate-setting meeting. It marks the central bank’s fourth pandemic-era rate hike, dating to Aug