Korea No. 7 in tax-to-GDP, No. 2 in growth pace in OECD

Cross-industry partnerships in the financial sector are in full swing as banks seek to transform personal data into a new revenue source, ditching their reliance on interest rates. Commercial lenders and credit card companies have been rushing to forge alliances with mobile carriers and retailers to compile large volumes of customer data from business partners in order to provide personalized products and to fuel data-driven marketing activities. The heating competition is ignited by the gove

South Korean stocks tumbled Tuesday, led by technology stock sell-offs, as investors' sentiment worsened over inflation woes. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 39.87 points, or 1.23 percent, to close at 3,209.43 points. Trading volume was high at about 1.1 billion shares worth some 21.2 trillion won ($18.9 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 447 to 419. Foreigners sold a net 2.2 trillion won, and retail investors pur

Along with Myanmar’s military coup, banks’ overseas expansion faces yet another major hurdle in India

Future Play, a South Korea-based accelerator, said on Tuesday that it has raised 10 billion won ($8.9 million) in the latest funding for its business expansion. Its Series B funding drew investment from LG International, DB Financial Investment, Prophet Asset Management, Futura, Data Solution and Hashed, said the company’s CEO and founder Ryu Jung-hee. The company plans to enter Indonesia later this month and introduce FuturePlace.AI, an online platform to provide tailor-made resources

South Korea‘s battery materials maker and petrochemical firm LG Chem said Tuesday it plans to commit 150 billion won ($134 million) capital to a new private equity fund that targets promising companies dedicated to electric vehicle parts and ecofriendly plastics. The committed capital will be part of IMM Credit Solution’s upcoming growth-focused Korea Battery & ESG Fund, which aims to earmark a total of 400 billion won. IMM Credit Solution is a subsidiary of Korea‘s thir

Hanwha Asset Management said Tuesday it has launched a new mobile app for retail investors wanting to buy a fund and go around third-party fund distribution channels. This is the latest move of South Korea‘s fourth-largest firm -- which has around 97 trillion won ($86.6 billion) in assets under its management -- to create its own online fund marketplace in a nation where tech-savvy consumers had few choices to buy funds other than through third-party sales channels of banks, securities br

A nonfungible token of the historic match between between South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol and Google’s artificial intelligence Go player AlphaGo has been auctioned off as a digital content on OpenSea, the world’s largest marketplace for NFTs, officials said Monday.  A nonfungible token is a digital recreation of media contents such as videos and photos that is traded via the blockchain. Upon the purchase through the internet auction site, investors can declare ownership of

SK ie technology, a battery materials subsidiary of refinery and battery firm SK Innovation, rose on its market debut on the South Korean main board Tuesday, but lost value over the trading day, despite rosy market forecasts.  As soon as the opening bell rang, shares of SKIET started off at 210,000 won ($187.64), doubling its initial public offering price, but closed at 26.43 percent down from their opening price, at 154,500 won. On the first day of trading, the company’s market capi

Combined service output rose in eight provinces and major cities in South Korea in the first quarter, led by production gains in Seoul, as the economy is on a recovery track, data showed Tuesday. Seoul, three other cities and four provinces posted an on-year increase in service output in the January-March period, according to the data from Statistics Korea. Among them, service output in Seoul -- home to about one-fifth of the country's 52 million population -- rose at the fastest rate of 6.3 p

South Korea's trade ministry said Tuesday it has settled 53 cases of non-tariff trade barriers that had direct impacts on local exporters in 2020. Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) operated 3,354 technical barriers to trade (TBT) in 2020, up 30 percent from 2016, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Of them, 131 cases had adverse impacts on local exports. TBTs, which include consumer safety standards, energy and environmental requirements, a

South Korea's tax revenue increased 19 trillion won ($17 billion) in the first quarter from a year earlier due largely to an increase in the collection of income and corporate taxes, the finance ministry said Tuesday. The country collected 88.5 trillion won in the January-March period, compared with 69.5 trillion won the previous year, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The tally came as capital gains tax income rose amid increased housing transactions and stock trading. Corpora

South Korean stocks opened lower Tuesday after the benchmark stock index closed at an all-time high the previous session, tracking a decline on Wall Street. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) fell 17.05 points, or 0.52 percent, to 3,232.25 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stock prices declined as investors sold stocks to lock in gains. The stock index had advanced for the past four trading sessions until Monday amid eased tapering jitters on Wall Street. In Seoul, market

South Korean confectionary companies enjoyed brisk overseas sales in 2020 thanks to the high popularity of Korean pop culture and food abroad, industry sources said Tuesday. Overseas sales of industry giant Orion Corp. stood at approximately 1.5 trillion won ($1.34 billion) last year, accounting for 65.6 percent of its overall top line. Last year's figure was up from 1.3 trillion won in 2019, 1.2 trillion won in 2018 and 1.06 trillion won in 2017. China was Orion's largest overseas market, wi

South Korea's exports soared 81.2 percent on-year in the first 10 days of May as shipments of chips, autos and petroleum goods remained robust amid a global economic recovery, customs data showed Tuesday. The country's outbound shipments stood at $12.5 billion in the May 1-10 period, compared with $6.9 billion a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Imports rose 51.5 percent on-year to $14.6 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $2.1 billion during the cited pe