The Financial Supervisory Service ordered Woori Investment & Securities to dismiss two stockbrokers, including a branch manager, engaged in embezzlement, regulatory officials said Sunday.

The regulator said it has uncovered incidences of embezzlement of 1.39 billion won ($1.24 million) committed at two branches in Seoul and Busan of Woori Investment.

The manager of Woori Investment’s Suyeong branch in Busan pocketed 665 million won from five customers’ accounts two years ago, FSS officials said.

The branch manager was found to have taken the illicit possession of the money 23 times between March and December 2011.

“Several investors entrusted the manager with securities transaction cards to sign up for the Home Trading System. But he exploited the cards and transferred their money to his accounts via automated teller machines,” said an FSS official.

The FSS also found that a female employee in charge of a division chief at a Woori Investment & Securities branch in the Gangnam Ward, southern Seoul, had embezzled 731 million won of retail customers’ money for the past four years.

She was found to have pocketed the money 78 times from six accounts of three individual investors from 2008 to 2012.

The regulator instructed the brokerage unit of Woori Financial Group to discharge the two employees, issuing an “institutional caution” against the firm.

In addition, several other employees at the two Woori branches were issued “salary reductions” or “reprimands” for other business irregularities.

Meanwhile, Woori Financial Group has reportedly taken a low-key stance over the embezzlement allegations as business transparency is significant in terms of raising corporate value, ahead of the future privatization.

Economic policymakers and the state-controlled Woori Financial management are seeking to retrieve taxpayers’ money, injected into the financial group, as soon as possible by putting the entire group or some business units up for auction.

Hana Daetoo Securities’ Gwangju branch was also sanctioned by the financial regulator for being implicated in irregular practices.

Its main malfeasance was excessively arbitrary stock-trading of brokers, breaching the rules restricting purchase or sale of equities held by customers, according to the FSS.

Its four brokers including the manger were slapped with fines of 25 million won. Further, two employees of the four will be subject to “salary reduction.”

By Kim Yon-se and Chung Joo-won

(kys@heraldcorp.com)
(joowonc@heraldcorp.com)