South Korea's financial authorities are moving to impose an income tax on cryptocurrency trading from next year, but investors in digital tokens have raised a nagging question about the proposed taxation. A growing number of cryptocurrency investors have cried foul over whether the government will collect a tax on virtual currencies while top policymakers see no intrinsic value in crypto assets amid a lack of regulations to protect cryptocurrency investors. Like many governments around the wo

The top executives of Shinhan Financial Group and Shinhan Bank received light sanctions Thursday over the sale of problematic funds structured by hedge fund firm Lime Asset Management.  A sanctions committee under the market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service handed down an admonition to Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung and a cautionary warning to Shinhan Bank CEO Jin Ok-dong for their lax oversight of the Lime fund misselling.  The decision was made late Thursda

South Korea said Friday it plans to import more eggs this month in a bid to help stabilize rising prices of eggs that were caused by the outbreak of bird flu here. The country plans to bring in 40 million eggs in April, up from the initially planned imports of 25 million, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The ministry said it will push to increase the imports of eggs next month as well and take available steps to curb a sharp rise in egg prices amid a build-up in overall inflat

South Korean stocks opened lower Friday, tracking an overnight Wall Street plunge that was spurred by a tax raise proposal in the United States. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 25.91 points, or 0.82 percent, to 3,151.61 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks deepened losses as investors weighed the impact of the potential tax hike on the wealthy in the United States on social spending. Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.94 percent, with the

Foreign ownership of South Korean land expanded nearly 2 percent in 2020 from a year earlier, the land ministry said Friday. Foreigners owned 253.3 square kilometers of land here as of the end of December last year, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The amount is slightly more than four times the size of Manhattan and accounts for 0.25 percent of South Korea's total land area. The value of land held by foreigners grew 3.1 perc

The daily foreign exchange (FX) trading by banks in South Korea jumped 20.7 percent in the first quarter from three months earlier, thanks to a modest recovery in trade, central bank data showed Friday. The daily FX turnover came to an average $60.94 billion in the January-March period, up $10.44 billion from the fourth quarter of last year, according to the data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). It was the biggest three-month gain since 2008, when the BOK changed its method of compiling the data.

The world‘s largest asset management firm BlackRock has sold a 1.18 percent stake in South Korea’s home appliance rental service firm Coway for 50 billion won ($44.7 million), a filing showed Thursday. Following the transactions, the combined equity holding of BlackRock Fund Advisors and 13 affiliated entities in Coway has been reduced to 3.83 percent, and is no longer subject to filing obligations as a blockholder of the company, which specializes in door-to-door rental services o

South Koreans used fintech company apps nearly nine times more than those operated by traditional banks every month last year, a report showed on Thursday, suggesting rapid growth of the digital finance market driven by its young and tech-savvy population. According to global mobile app analytics firm App Annie, mobile users of the nation’s top five fintech apps, such as payment solution Kakao Pay, Toss, and Kakao Bank, used the apps 225 times a month on average last year, tantamount to

Dunamu, the operator of Korea’s largest crypto exchange, has been enjoying its profit surging with transactions exceeding that of global competitor Coinbase, market data showed Thursday. For the first quarter of this year, Dunamu, which operates Upbit, Korea’s largest digital coin exchange by transaction volume, is expected to see revenue of 590 billion won ($528 million) with extreme profit rates. The company’s estimated operating profit is 544 billion won and net profit at

South Korean stocks rebounded Thursday as investors sought oversold stocks after the benchmark index took a breather the previous session. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 5.86 points, or 0.18 percent, to close at 3,177.52 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.7 billion shares worth some 14.6 trillion won ($13.1 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 467 to 383. Foreigners sold a net 147 billion won, and insti

SK ie technology, a wholly owned battery materials subsidiary under SK Innovation, said Thursday that it was looking to raise nearly 2.25 trillion won ($2.02 billion) in fresh funds via an initial public offering on South Korea’s main bourse next month. While it plans to float about 21.4 million shares on the Kospi market in a price band of 78,000-105,000 won, some 8.55 million new shares are set to be issued. SK Innovation will sell 12.83 million SKIET shares for the IPO. The exact sh

South Korea’s Hana Financial Group announced Thursday it has set a goal to pour 60 trillion won ($53.7 billion) into its long-term environmental, social and governance finance plan. Under its ESG financing blueprint, the group will issue relevant bonds worth 25 trillion won, loans worth 25 trillion won, fund management worth 2 trillion won and other related investments worth 10 trillion won by 2030. In line with its ESG financing goals, Hana aims to achieve carbon neutrality in its int

The delinquency rate for South Korean banks' won-denominated loans inched up in February from the previous month, the financial regulator said Thursday. The rate for bank loans more than 30 days overdue stood at 0.33 percent at the end of February, up 0.02 percentage point from the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Compared with a year earlier, the bank loan delinquency rate was up 0.1 percentage point. Banks' loan delinquency rate remains stable mainly bec

The portion of South Korean exports settled using the country's currency inched down in 2020 from a year ago, data showed Thursday. The use of the won accounted for 2.5 percent of all export settlements last year, down 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The slight decline was attributed to Washington's economic sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear program, which led to decreased use of the won in settling exports to the Middle East. Wo

South Korean women have suffered employment strains more than men amid the pandemic as job posts in the in-person service segment, hard hit by the virus outbreak, sharply eroded, a report showed Thursday. The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow to married women in the labor force, compared with previous economic turmoil when married men suffered sharp job losses, according to the report by the Korea Development Institute (KDI). The number of employed women aged between 25 and 54 declined