The head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on Tuesday called for brokerages to strengthen protection for investors and internal control, in the wake of chaos over a dividend payment error at Samsung Securities Co.At a meeting with the heads of 17 brokerages, FSS Gov. Kim Ki-sik said they must conduct reviews of their internal control mechanisms to prevent such errors from happening again and urged them to come up with fundamental measures to regain investor confidence and strengthen eth

Top brokerage reels under aftermath of stock dividend error

Payoneer, a New York-based payments processing company, officially launched a new South Korea office Tuesday, targeting small and midsized businesses here that sell their products globally via online marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba.　“Launching Payoneer’s office in Korea shouldn’t come as a surprise. Korea is a fast-growing economy and the seventh biggest e-commerce market in the world,” said Payoneer’s General Manager for Direct Business Eyal Moldovan during a

About 16 percent of apartments bought and sold in Seoul during the first quarter of the year were expensive real estate.Out of the 24,606 Seoul apartments traded between January and March, 3,921 units were worth over 900 million won ($841,000), according to statistics released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Monday. It posted a rapid on-year increase. During the same period last year, only 11.5 percent of apartments bought and sold were worth over 900 million won.  Mea

Cheong Wa Dae turns down calls for Kim’s dismissal

Concerns are growing over the negative impact of the strengthening won on Korea’s exports, with expectations also being raised that a rise in the value of the currency will help boost investment and consumption.The value of the won gained 1.16 percent against the US dollar over the past two weeks to close at 1,069.6 won per dollar in the Seoul foreign exchange market Friday.It marked the second-steepest appreciation among the currencies of Group of 20 major economies following Mexico&rsquo

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service on Monday began an investigation into Samsung Securities over it lacking internal controls to detect or correct a computational input error that caused slipshod dividend payments over 40,000 times larger than intended.The watchdog denounced the firm for its “severe” systemic flaw that enabled erroneously created virtual stocks to be traded like real assets.At a press conference Monday to unveil its plans to look into the fourth-larges

President Moon Jae-in appointed the incumbent head of the central bank to a second term Monday, stressing the importance of stability in monetary policy.Bank of Korea Gov. Lee Ju-yeol was appointed to his second four-year term in a ceremony held at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.Lee's appointment came about a month after the president decided to retain the top central banker for a second term.The 65-year-old is the first person in more than four decades to have been appointed to a second

South Korea's chief economic policy maker on Monday sought cooperation from smaller firms to create quality jobs to reduce the country's high youth unemployment rate.Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon made the remark during a meeting with executives of small and medium-sized enterprises held in Seoul."We hope the planned support for SMEs will lead to job creation beyond the current level of employment," Kim said, referring to the government's proposed extra budget. Early this month, the go

A labor union of South Korean bank employees is demanding bank branches here close during lunchtime in forthcoming collective bargaining talks.  The Korean Financial Industry Union was reported as saying Monday the proposal was designed to guarantee bank clerks get an hourlong lunch break. The KFIU is an umbrella group representing labor unions of over 30 financial institutions, including local commercial banks, provincial banks and co-ops.Korean banks, with few exceptions, are open to cust

The sharp rise in the country's minimum wage this year is fueling inflationary pressure and concerns of public charge hikes going forward that can increase the burden on ordinary people, market watchers said Sunday.The government marked up the minimum wage for all workers by 16.4 percent in 2018 to 7,530 won ($7.04) from 6,470 in 2017 as part of a broader move by the incumbent Moon Jae-in administration to reduce the pay gap between workers and fuel private consumption that can act as a growth e

A South Korean brokerage mistakenly paying 1,000 shares in dividends instead of 1,000 won ($0.93) due to a computational error Friday has exposed a major loophole in the nation’s stock trading system, prompting immediate intervention by regulators.Starting Monday, the Financial Supervisory Service will launch an inspection into internal system flaws at Samsung Securities, the nation’s fourth-largest brokerage, where the incident happened last week, officials said Sunday. The authorit

Korea's top 10 business groups accounted for 79.1 percent of all net profits generated by companies listed on the country's main stock exchange in 2017, the local bourse operator said Sunday.According to the Korea Exchange, of the 533 companies checked that settled their accounts in December, profits by the 62 affiliates belonging to the country's 10 largest chaebol, or family-run conglomerates, totaled 90.6 trillion won ($84.7 billion), up 57.1 percent from the 57.6 trillion won tallied in 2016

Real interest rates offered by South Korean lenders fell into minus territory last year, with people effectively losing money if they make deposits, central bank data showed Sunday.The Bank of Korea said the average annual interest rate for savings accounts stood at 1.56 percent, compared with inflation that reached 1.9 percent, resulting in a real interest rate of minus 0.34 percent.It said average interest rate numbers for 2017 were the second lowest in history and marked the first time in six

Korea's central bank will likely hold its key rate steady at the upcoming monetary policy meeting due largely to low inflationary pressure, a leading provider of economic analysis said Sunday.The Bank of Korea is set to hold its rate review session Thursday to decide whether to keep or adjust the current 1.5 percent. The BOK has maintained the present rate since it raised it by a quarter percentage point from an all-time low of 1.25 percent in November."The Bank of Korea will likely keep th