The Financial Consumer Agency, a leading local financial civic group, said massive customer information leaks from major credit card companies, involving over 100 million units of personal information, was the top financial news topic of the year.

“This served as momentum to promote the public’s awareness of financial security, but the compensation system for victims has shown little improvement,” the agency said.

The top 10 financial news topics of 2014 ranged from the massive customer information leak detected in January, to the replacement of the Financial Supervisory Service chief in November, the agency said.

As for KB Financial’s months-long feud, FICA said that the dispute was attributable to the government’s influence-peddling in personnel matters.

“The group chairman was a former high-ranking ministry official, while the bank president was from the financial research circles, a background that led to the factional dispute,” it said.

As the list shows, most of the misdemeanors were similar to last year’s, indicating that the financial industry has failed to improve its chronic problems, according to the agency.

Other financial news included a nationwide controversy concerning the appointment of financial chiefs, the rise in e-financing fraud, ongoing Tong Yang lawsuits, the replacement of the FSS governor, the cancellation of the financial consumer protection board, Woori Bank’s failed sell-off, the audit request on financial watchdogs and disputes over life insurance payouts for suicides.

“Throughout this year, the financial industry displayed a fundamental weakness in information management and personnel matters,” said FICA director Cho Nam-hee.

“At the root of most of these problems was the deeply rooted custom of bureaucratic governance, but little has been done to resolve the situation.”

In fact, the level of direct interference coming from financial authorities has increased during the period, he added.

FICA also pointed out that an increasing number of Sogang University alumni have recently been appointed to key financial posts. Sogang is the alma mater of President Park Gun-hye.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)