The Korea Herald

[Graphic News] Number of credit cards falls below 100 million mark

Mar 9, 2014

The number of credit cards in South Korea fell below the 100 million mark in February, leading to a fall in the average number of credit cards held by each economically active person, industry data showed Sunday. The decline appeared to be mostly due to the massive data leak in January and the government’s stringent countermeasures.
Overheated credit card market loses luster

Mar 9, 2014

Due to the convenience of the system and benefits, credit cards have long been a dominant means of payment in Korea, especially for large transactions. But it seems that their disadvantages are fast outweighing the advantages.Park Eun-hee, a 31-year-old bank employee in Seoul who married in February this year, says that she found her credit card quite useless during her wedding preparations.“The discount or cash-back benefits offered by most of the credit cards were not as great as the tax benef
GS, Hanwha, Hanjin fined for undisclosed internal trade

Mar 9, 2014

The Fair Trade Commission said Sunday that it fined conglomerates GS, Hanwha and Hanjin for illicit internal transactions that violated disclosure requirements.The FTC detected 41 cases of violation at 24 of the three groups’ 171 subsidiaries and imposed combined fines of 586 million won ($552,300), the commission officials said.The fine followed a probe recently conducted on the country’s top 10 privately owned business groups, which possess assets of 5 trillion won or more.GS Group topped the
Card firms’ 2013 net rises 27.1 percent

Mar 9, 2014

Earnings by South Korean credit card companies jumped 27.1 percent last year from a year earlier from a drop in bad debt expenses, the financial regulator said Sunday.The combined net income of seven stand-alone card firms came to 1.66 trillion won ($1.56 billion) in 2013 compared with 1.3 trillion won the previous year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.The 2013 performance of Woori Card Co., which spun off from Woori Bank in April, was not included in the data.The FSS attributed t
Businesses wary of pension fund’s veto

Mar 7, 2014

NPS under pressure to vote against renaming Hyosung Group chairman
Korea aims to expand M&A market by 75%

Mar 6, 2014

The South Korean government will give a much-needed boost to mergers and acquisitions activities in the next three years, setting a goal of expanding the local M&A market.The Finance Ministry announced on Thursday that the government is looking to amend and abolish a number of regulations so as to encourage corporate takeovers and more private-equity-backed M&A deals.The government is targeting to increase the volume local M&A market around 70 trillion won ($65 billion) by 2017, from about 40 tr
[Newsmaker] Economic team blasted for inconsistency

Mar 6, 2014

The Park Geun-hye administration appears to be discontented with the economic policies created by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok.This was suggested through the remarks of Prime Minister Chung Hong-won on Thursday, who claimed that the state economic policy team has failed to gain public credibility due to its inconsistency in carrying out major policies.During a ministerial meeting for national policy fine-tuning, Chung criticized the Finance Ministry’s recent reversal o
KEB pioneers overseas real estate funding sector

Mar 6, 2014

Korea Exchange Bank, hand in hand with a Japanese partner, made its entry into Europe’s prime real estate finance market by contributing a syndicated loan to a prestige real estate funding project in the U.K., the company said in a press release on Thursday.This is to be the first case of a Korean bank participating in a syndicated loan in the overseas real estate market and also the first example of overseas project financing cooperation between Korea and Japan.KEB, jointly with Japan’s leading
FSS vows to prioritize consumer protection after data leaks

Mar 5, 2014

Financial security campaigns extended to multicultural families, N. Korean defectors
Hyundai’s new Sonata gets bump in price

Mar 5, 2014

Hyundai Motor Co.’s brand-new Sonata sedan has received a modest bump in price over the outgoing model that reflects various updates in handling and safety, the carmaker said Wednesday.The price for the base 2.0-liter-engine Sonata LF with a continuously variable valve lift has been set at 22.7 million won ($21,000), a gain of 600,000 won from the current sixth-generation Sonata YF that has been in production since 2009.It said for the highest trim level, the new car’s price goes up to 28.8 mill
Household savings growth lowest in 6 years

Mar 5, 2014

South Korean households’ savings increased at the slowest pace in six years in 2013 as they struggled to meet spending commitments and sought after investment vehicles offering higher returns amid low interest rates, data showed on Tuesday.Households’ deposits at banks stood at 501.7 trillion won ($469 billion) at the end of last year, up 6.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Bank of Korea.Of them, savings deposits, which earn interests for a relatively long peri
KRX union files complaint against finance minister

Mar 5, 2014

Unionized workers of the Korea Exchange on Wednesday filed a complaint against Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok with the prosecution for abuse of authority and neglect of duties.The KRX union continuously criticized the Finance Ministry’s recent decision not to privatize the main bourse and to maintain it in the public agency list. “It was a practice going against the law and principles,” the union said in a statement. The workers argued that the government is hampering gl
Putin ends military drills, but Crimea tension still high

Mar 4, 2014

Russians fire warning shots at Ukraine soldiers; U.S. suspends military cooperation with Moscow
Korea faces market volatility

Mar 4, 2014

South Korea’s financial markets are expected to face an increase in volatility and capital outflows as tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine escalate and geopolitical risks concerning North Korea grow, analysts said.Potential military confrontations in Ukraine have undermined investor sentiment and rattled global stocks and currencies, and spiked oil prices over the last couple of days, despite Ukraine accounting for less than 1 percent of the global economy.The benchmark KOSPI close
World markets under pressure

Mar 4, 2014

HONG KONG (AFP) ― Asian markets were mixed Tuesday after the previous day’s global sell-off, but investors remain on edge as they await world leaders’ response to Russia’s decision to send forces into Ukraine.While the international community anxiously watches events in Eastern Europe, analysts said the fact that the crisis had not worsened had provided a buying opportunity.The dollar and euro also clawed back some of Monday’s losses against the yen as a certain degree of confidence returned to