KT, a major telecom operator here, launched on Wednesday a prepaid financial service named “Mobile Money” that will be linked with accounts of Industrial Bank of Korea. The service is designed for smartphones equipped with the Android operating system 2.1 or higher. Compared with other “smart” banking systems, Mobile Money has a faster and easier authentication procedure, KT said.Users can charge

The United States is “mindful” of progress South Korea and the European Union have achieved in ratifying their free trade agreement, the top American envoy here said Wednesday, as Seoul and Washington make their last push to bring their own deal to life.“Yes, we are very mindful that our friends in Europe also have a free trade agreement,” U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens said duri

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) ― U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday called for more investment in broadband lines and other infrastructure in the United States to catch up with South Korea and other countries.“Our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating,” Obama told a town hall meeting at Northern Virginia Community College, in Annandale, Virginia. “We don’t even have a serious high-spee

Question of central bank’s supervisory authority emergesRecent security incidents in the financial sector have reignited debate on whether the Bank of Korea should have authority to conduct independent inquiries into financial companies.Currently, the central bank is only entitled to probe financial companies jointly with the Financial Supervisory Service.While FSS-BOK joint investigations are foc

Brokerages seek to capture rich investors on expectations of financial deregulationBrokerages are struggling to capture wealthy investors with high-yielding private equity products as deregulation in homegrown hedge funds looms large.Money poured into hedge fund-style products as soon as top brokerages such as Samsung, Woori Investment and Korea Investment rolled them out in the past month, sparki

South Korea’s credit card spending expanded 16.2 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier amid the country’s consumer price advance, a trade association said Wednesday. Purchases made by credit card amounted to 105.2 trillion won ($96.9 billion) during the January-March period, compared with 90.6 trillion won in the same period last year, according to the Credit Finance Association.The dat

South Korea’s LG Electronics Tuesday unveiled a refrigerator which suggests recipes as it forecast a bright future in the potentially lucrative market for “smart” household appliances.LG will roll out smart fridges, washers and other appliances in South Korea and North America by the end of this year to compete against rivals including Samsung Electronics and Whirlpool, Lee Young-ha, president of