South Korea’s financial authority said Monday it has uncovered a large-scale hacking scheme that resulted in the theft of personal financial transaction information of hundreds of bank clients.According to the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, a group of hackers allegedly stole a total of 461 authenticated certificates, in an apparent bid to withdraw cash from victims’ bank accounts.The KFTC, which settles financial transactions among individuals, said it reported the c

The nation’s financial regulator is poised to reprimand Citibank Korea for having been negligent in consumer protection.Officials at the Financial Services Commission are fine-tuning the draft on a sanction against the local unit of U.S.-based Citigroup, which was created by the Financial Supervisory Service.The FSS, an executive arm of the FSC, has already decided to issue a “cautionary warning” on Citibank Korea CEO Ha Yung-ku and an “institutional warning” on the commercial lender.Consumers s

Hyundai Motor Group said Monday that it would extend financial support for suppliers and their subcontractors which are expected to face difficulties in the coming months amid slowing car sales and volatile foreign currency rates. As part of efforts to seek shared growth with smaller firms, the Korean auto giant has decided to expand beneficiaries of existing financial benefits from the current 300 suppliers to 5,000 or so subcontractors from this year. Hyundai had operated four support programs

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In an effort to uncover hidden tax revenues, the Korea Customs Service will ramp up its tariff audit on luxury goods imports this year, officials said.Items subject to the change are mostly designer clothes, bags and cars ― imported by the Korean branches of multinational companies.“We will expand the range of subject companies from 80 to 130 this year, in order to raise tax revenues and to back the new administration’s financial needs,” said a KCS official last week.The amount raised by detecti

Three major foreign cigarette producers in Korea have yielded some of their market share to Korean brand KT&G, following their hike of prices for their products.According to cigarette industry data, the three players ― Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International ― posted 35.3 percent in combined market share in January, down from 40.4 percent from a year before.Philip Morris reported a drop from 22.7 percent in January 2012 to 19.3 percent in January 2013. The shares

Three out of 10 South Korean hotels and other tourism-related businesses said they could face a slump this year due to the global economic slowdown and the local currency's ascent against the U.S. dollar, a poll showed Sunday.The survey of 305 hotels, tour operators and tourism-related businesses by the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute in November found that 30.2 percent of the respondents said the tourism industry could suffer a slump.The institute, affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, S

Samsung will seek partnership with fashion designer Alexander Wang to create a new print based on doodles, sketches, and photographs sent via smartphone by fashion celebrities around the world, The New York Times reported on its Saturday edition.The designer's collaborators will participate in the project by sending ideas on Samsung Galaxy Note II smartphones to design "a limited-collection bag," it said.Proceeds from sales of the bag will be donated to an art charity for children in New York, i

China will likely become the world's largest economy by 2017, overtaking the economic powerhouse U.S., a report showed Sunday.Professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) said in a report that China's gross domestic product measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis will be nearly US$20 trillion, surpassing the comparable figure for the U.S.By 2030, the world's three largest economies on PPP basis will be China with $30.6 trillion, the U.S. with $23.4 trillion and India with $1

The South Korean economy is likely to expand at a slower pace than expected this year due to the negative impact of the Japanese currency's depreciation on its overseas shipments, Goldman Sachs said Friday.In its latest forecast, the global investment bank said Asia's fourth-largest economy will likely grow 3.1 percent this year, down from its earlier estimate of 3.4 percent made in December.Kwon Goo-hoon, the managing director and co-head of research at Goldman Sachs Asia, attributed the lower

South Korea's central bank said Friday it provided a net 4.35 trillion won (US$3.98 billion) in liquidity into the financial system to help money smoothly flow ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.The Bank of Korea (BOK) said that its money injection for the 10 business days leading up to the holiday was slightly down from a net 4.39 trillion won provided the previous year.The BOK said the reduced supply mainly came as this year's Lunar New Year holiday is one day shorter than last year.The Lunar