Three foreign automakers will soon make inroads into Korea as the nation’s import car market continues to expand.Mitsubishi Motors and Citroen have decided to reenter Korea in March and April, respectively. Fiat is fine-tuning the timing of its advancement.Mitsubishi Motors will resume sales in the local market in mid-March after a year-long hiatus.Its official importer and distributor has been changed to CXC Motors from the former MMSK.CXC Motors is poised to open large showrooms for the Japane

Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors will help support the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, slated for March 26-27.The two companies delivered 262 vehicles, produced for protocol and guard of the global leaders, to the preparation committee for the summit on Monday.The vehicles included the Equus limousine by Hyundai Motor and the Starex van from Kia Motors, which will be used for the figures from more than 50 countries.The automakers will also run a maintenance team of 70 experts fo

Regulators examining credit card companies’ cyber security measuresShinhan Card drew the highest number of complaints from customers last year in the local credit card industry.According to the Credit Finance Association, Shinhan Card was responsible for 447 dispute cases filed with financial regulators in 2011.Shinhan has been capturing more than 20 percent of the credit card market since acquiring LG Card, formerly No. 1 before the 2003 credit card fiasco.Disputes between customers and card is

Hana Financial Group selected the group’s new president, the No. 2 figure in the group, and its flagship Hana Bank’s CEO, the No. 3 figure.The group’s move comes after its ad hoc committee picked incumbent Hana Bank CEO Kim Jung-tai as the new chairman, the No. 1 post, following its takeover of Korea Exchange Bank.Choe Heung-sik, CEO of Hana Institute of Finance, was nominated as a candidate for group president to replace Kim Jong-yeol, who expressed his intention to resign in January.“I will t

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors saw their February sales in the U.S. market reach an all-time high.Hyundai Motor sold 51,151 units last month in the U.S., up 18 percent from 43,533 units a year earlier. It is a record-high performance for the carmaker’s February sales.Sales of the Sonata and Avante, called the Elantra in the U.S., came to 17,425 and 13,820 units, respectively.Kia Motors, an affiliate of Hyundai Motor, reported 37.3 percent growth with sales of 45,038 units in the world’s biggest au

The growth of consumer prices dropped to its lowest in 14 months in February, while worries over inflationary pressure continue mainly due to skyrocketing oil prices.Statistics Korea data showed Friday that the nation’s consumer prices climbed 3.1 percent in February from a year earlier, which marked the lowest year-on-year growth since 3 percent in December 2010.In January, year-on-year price growth came to 3.4 percent. An official at the statistics agency attributed the fall to a drop in publi

Nonghyup Financial Group will make its debut on Friday as the fifth-largest out of the 11 finance holdings firms on the national market.The new group is an entity which has been spun off from the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup.Nonghyup has decided to separately operate its financial and its agricultural products businesses for the first time in 51 years.Though Nonghyup Financial, also called NH Financial, lags behind the four major financial groups ― Woori, Hana, KB an

Hyundai Motor has been selected as a sponsor for the 2013 Summer Universiade, which will be held in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, a federal subject of Russia.The carmaker will support about 1,100 vehicles such as the Equus and Avante, dubbed Solaris in the Russian market, for the biennial sports event.It will also offer 340 buses for transportation of more than 10,000 student players from about 170 countries under a contract with the organizing committee.Hyundai Motor signed a

Group dismisses allegation that management engaged in irregularitiesWith his retirement just several weeks away, Hana Financial Group chairman Kim Seung-yu has been accused of committing irregularities during his involvement in the group’s takeover of Korea Exchange Bank from Lone Star Funds.A group of lawyers, professors and civic groups filed a complaint against the Hana Financial chief with the prosecution for breach of trust last Wednesday.Hana’s 26 executives also face a criminal investigat

Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo and his son Eui-sun have been expanding their presence in the group’s subsidiaries.Chairman Chung is to take on the role of a standing director in Hyundai Engineering & Construction, which was acquired by the automotive group in March 2011, Hyundai Motor said Wednesday.Last Friday, Chung Eui-sun, Hyundai Motor vice chairman and Kia Motors president, was named a standing director of Hyundai-Steel.According to Hyundai spokespeople, their direct involveme

Bank and union agree on pay raise, creation of task force on other issuesStandard Chartered Bank Korea has reached a compromise with its union on a wage hike, though there are still unsettled aspects to their talks.The two sides agreed to pay raises of 2 percent and 4.1 percent for 2010 and 2011 salaries, respectively, late Tuesday.Their talks on the salary hike have continued over the past two years amid the possibility of a general strike of unionized workers.They also tentatively compromised

Kia Motors unveiled the exterior design of the K9, a luxury premium sedan, on Tuesday.“Its design features futuristic and high-end technology,” the company said in a statement. The car will officially be launched sometime before July.The sedan, which is expected to compete with Hyundai Motor’s Equus and Genesis sedans in sales, is an upper series of Kia Motors’ K7 and K5 sedans. K9 is the latest product of Kia’s evolving design approach, carrying its signature radiator grille, bold “high-tech lu

Controversial law may pass National Assembly ahead of April electionsCredit card firms are considering filing a petition with the Constitutional Court to ban lawmakers from providing the government with the right to lower the services fees on card payments.A revision of the Credit Finance Business Act allows the government to set the rates of credit card service fees charged on retailers.Ahead of the April 11 general elections, the bill has been pushed by a dominant number of ruling and oppositi

Hana Financial Group selected Hana Bank CEO Kim Jung-tai, the No. 3 figure in the group, as its new chairman on Monday.Kim, who has been picked as the only candidate by the group’s ad hoc committee, will be appointed to the post in several weeks.The 60-year-old figure has been working for Hana Financial and its flagship unit Hana Bank for 20 years since its foundation in 1992.In a statement, the nominee said he would like to play the role of a “helper,” who will pave the way for employees to opt

South Korean stocks dropped 1.42 percent Monday on concerns that rising oil prices may hurt the South Korean economy and corporate earnings, analysts said. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index lost 28.73 points to end at 1,991.16. Trading volume was moderate at 629 million shares worth 5.48 trillion won ($4.85 billion) with decliners leading gainers 570 to 275.“Rising oil prices could be a big burden to the local economy and hurt corpora

Korea Exchange Bank dismissed all nine of its executives Monday, under the business policy of its new CEO Yun Yong-ro to revamp management structure.His move comes a month after financial regulators endorsed Hana Financial Group’s takeover of KEB from Lone Star Funds.Yun, the first KEB CEO under the wing of Hana Financial, notified the nine executives, including four deputy CEOs, that their terms would not be extended.The executives were at their posts during Lone Star’s management of the bank f

The labor dispute in Standard Chartered Bank Korea has entered a critical phase again as its management recently failed to reach a compromise with the union.The union of Standard Chartered has threatened to stage a general strike amid the standstill in their negotiations with the management.Though the unionized workers, who went on a walkout between June and August, returned to work, the dispute has not been resolved, according to bank spokespeople.“They are working at branches. But their protes

Chairman could oversee Hana’s emergence as Korea’s No. 1 financial groupHana Financial Group plans to select the successor to incumbent chairman Kim Seung-yu, whose term expires in late March, in the coming days.The new chairman will be the second figure to head Hana Financial since Kim took on the top post in 2005.Further, Kim’s successor will take on the role of integrating different corporate culture of Hana Bank and Korea Exchange Bank, which was acquired by the group this month, over the ne

By Kim Yon-seKB Financial Group has been expanding its social contribution activities such as educational programs for students and donations to the needy.In particular, the group’s social foundation is diversifying educational and scholarship programs.Last year, the group set up the KB Financial Public Foundation, specialized in education and research, to support economic and financial research projects.The foundation controls 20 billion won ($17.5 million) of funds donated by KB and its subsid

The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, faced another problem with its cyber transaction systems early Thursday.A certain proportion of Nonghyup customers could not access its internet banking system for about five hours until 7 a.m. on the day.As this marked the fifth glitch in online transactions in less than one year for Nonghyup, its cyber security system has been regarded as seriously vulnerable to hackers.In April 2011, it suffered a critical breakdown of the network