South Korea will step up itsmonitoring of any speculative movement in the financial markets, the finance ministry said Friday, amid worries over the local currency's fast ascent against the greenback."The government will intensify its market monitoring to see if there is any speculative movement in foreign capital flows and transactions in the non-deliverable forward market in relation to recent currency exchange rates," the ministry said in a message sent to reporters.The ministry added that th

South Korean stocks bounced back Thursday from eight days of losses as retail and institutional investors hunted for bargains while foreign investors sold shares, analysts said. The South Korean won closed nearly flat against the U.S. dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 0.55 percent, or 10.72 points, to 1,950.60. Trading volume was moderate at 218.94 million shares worth 3.82 trillion won ($3.7 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 402 to 398. The market started hig

KB Financial Group Inc., South Korea’s No. 2 banking group, paid the largest amount of compensation to its outside directors last year with each receiving an average 115 million won ($112,000), data showed on Thursday.KB Financial’s three outside directors attended a total of 20 board meetings last year, which translates into some 5.7 million won being paid per session, according to the data compiled by the Corporate Governance Service.The banking group paid a total of 923 million won to its out

The nation’s economy will grow 4.1 percent this year, down from earlier estimations but nevertheless picking up momentum after years of slow growth, according to a state-run financial think tank.The previous figure from the Korea Institute of Finance had been set at 4 percent, which the think tank claimed actually was 4.2 percent when using an updated calculation system. The lowered growth forecast from KIF is still higher than the conservative 4 percent growth projected by the Bank of Korea.The

Standard Chartered Bank Korea was reprimanded for violating accounting rules on its trading of derivatives worth 1 trillion won ($977.8 billion), according to the Financial Supervisory Service on Thursday.The watchdog said that SC Bank Korea, a local unit of Britain-based banking giant Standard Chartered PLC, conducted transactions with the Seoul branches of six foreign banks on 15 occasions since March 2010. The amount reached a combined $1.79 billion worth of currency swaps and 190 billion won

South Korea's foreign exchange reserves set a record high in April on the rise in the value of non-dollar assets and investment profit, the central bank said Thursday.The country's foreign reserves totaled a record US$355.85 billion as of end-April, up $1.5 billion from the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).It rose for the 10th straight month in April after declining the most in 13 months in June last year.Foreign reserves consist of securities and deposits denominated in over

A local lender was reprimanded for illegal money transactions involving an account held by the Iranian central bank, officials at the South Korean financial watchdog said Wednesday. An inspection on the state-run Industrial Bank of Korea by the Financial Supervisory Service in September discovered major discrepancies in the senders and receivers of remittances for trade that were not properly reported to local authorities, according to the officials.A South Korean trading company had imported $9

ASEAN Plus Three ministers commit to expanding Chiang Mai Initiative

The South Korean won has recently advanced the most against the U.S. dollar among major currencies thanks to its continued current account surplus, market watchers said Tuesday. In April alone, the local currency strengthened 3.05 percent against the greenback, the biggest appreciation among the world’s 40 major currencies, according to the watchers. On Friday, the South Korean currency finished at 1,030.33 won to the dollar, the highest level in nearly six years.The won’s recent appreciation ag