South Korea's market interest rates are likely to trend higher in January due to a rise in US Treasury sales, a report said Friday.The yield on South Korea's three-year government bonds is projected to continue its uptrend next month due to overseas factors, ranging from 2 percent to 2.3 percent, according to the report by the Woori Finance Research Institute.Currently, the return on three-year government bonds hovers around 2.1 percent. The report said January's upturn will likely result from A

South Korean domestic stock investment funds have attracted more than 3 trillion won ($2.8 billion) over the past month amid expectations for a market rally in January, a market tracker said Friday.Equity funds focused on local stocks posted a net money inflow of 3.54 trillion won in the month to Thursday, according to FnGuide. In particular, domestic equity funds lured as much as 1 trillion won over the past week, it added.The jump was attributed to hopes for a stock market rally in the new yea

The government said Thursday it is banning the use of anonymous virtual accounts in cryptocurrency transactions as part of efforts to curb virtual currency speculation.Hong Nam-ki, minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, made the announcement after a meeting of vice ministers from related ministries, saying the government "can't let this abnormal situation of speculation go on any longer."Under the measure, only real-name bank accounts and matching accounts at virtua

The chief of South Korea's financial watchdog has warned against a bitcoin bubble, saying the price of the virtual currency may plunge in the future."I bet the bubble in bitcoin will burst later," Choe Heung-sik, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, told a year-end meeting with journalists Wednesday. "Companies existed during South Korea's IT bubble in the early 2000s, but that is not the case for bitcoin."The regulator hinted that South Korea has no solution to the

More than three out of every 10 South Korean workers have invested in cryptocurrencies to make a quick buck, a recent survey showed Wednesday.Of the 941 salaried people questioned, 31.3 percent have invested in virtual currencies, according to the survey conducted by online job portal Saramin.The average investment per capita was 5.66 million won ($5,300).Investments of less than one million won were made by 44.1 percent of correspondents, while 18.3 percent invested between one million won and

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee has seen the value of his stock assets rise by nearly 4 trillion won ($3.7 billion) this year thanks to a rally of the tech giant on the local bourse, a market tracker said Wednesday.According to CEO Score, Lee, who has been hospitalized since May 2014 after he suffered a heart attack, had 18.1 trillion won in stock holdings as of Friday, up 3.9 trillion won from a year earlier.Lee is the sole South Korean whose stock holdings are valued at 10 trillion wo

The value of shares traded on South Korea’s second-tier stock market Kosdaq in 2017 hit an all-time high as of Friday, riding the momentum of biotech shares and heightening volatility of shares linked to the cryptocurrency industry since November, data showed Tuesday. From Jan. 2, 2017 to Friday, investors traded stocks worth 876.3 trillion won ($813.9 billion) in total, beating the previous record of 873.8 trillion won in 2015, according to data from the market operator Korea Exchange. On

This is the 47th in a series of articles analyzing major companies traded on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market. -- Ed.Raonsecure, a local mobile security solutions provider, had a year filled with a string of opportunities, as the government pushed to abolish the use of ActiveX from major websites and approved operations of mobile banks. But nothing seems to have pushed the price ceiling of the Kosdaq-listed company further than growing interest in one particular market -- cryptocurrency.On the back

Mirae Asset Global Investment was managing over 300 private or retirement pension funds worth a combined 5.02 trillion won ($4.65 billion) as of November, a quarter of the domestic market, according to the firm Monday.The volume of the pension funds run by the asset management arm under Mirae Asset Group jumped more than fourfold in November from the end of 2010. The company managed private pension funds worth a combined 2.59 trillion won, while its retirement pension funds were worth

South Korea's six major economic institutes on Monday picked the global monetary policy tightening cycle as the biggest challenge for the economy next year. In Yonhap News Agency's poll of the heads of the country's six economic institutes, they expressed concerns that there might be an outflow of capital from emerging markets as the world's central banks look set to raise rates further as part of monetary tightening.  "A massive amount of capital has been injected into emerging market

South Korea‘s benchmark stock index is widely expected to stage a rally at the start of the new year following a recent downturn sparked by massive foreign selling, sources said Sunday.　Foreign investors have been dumping South Korean shares this month to lock in gains in top-cap Samsung Electronics Co. and other tech issues, with their net selling reaching more than 1.8 trillion won (US$1.7 billion). 　Offshore investors’ heavy selling has sent the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Pri

South Korea's financial watchdog has started an inquiry into allegations that some banks gave special favors to some job candidates related to senior executives, sources said Friday.The Financial Supervisory Service mobilized a team of 30 inspectors Tuesday to begin investigating suspected hiring-related wrongdoing by 11 commercial lenders, including such major players as Kookmin, KEB Hana, Shinhan and Nonghyup.The initial investigation was to be concluded later Friday.The FSS investigators visi

South Korea‘s top monetary policymaker expressed concerns on what he called the nation’s “irrational exuberance” that may partly be blamed on the cryptocurrency frenzy among local retail investors, during a meeting with the press Wednesday night.This comes in contrast to the “rational exuberance” seen in Korea’s bull financial markets, such as the record run in stock markets and flattening yield curve driven by robust fundamentals and a low key rate poli

South Korea will unveil a package of measures during the first quarter of next year on financial regulatory reforms that would lower entry barriers for new players and boost competition in the local financial industry, the nation's top financial regulator said Thursday. Choi Jong-ku, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, told reporters that the planned deregulation is aimed at "promoting innovation and healthy competition in the financial industry by new participants." Choi di

One of South Korea’s cryptocurrency markets, YouBit, was forced to shut down on Tuesday after a hacking attack, the exchange said. Hackers stole about 17 percent of YouBit’s cryptocurrency in the attack, which happened at 4:35 a.m., the exchange said in a statement posted on its website. YouBit did not reveal the value of the stolen cryptocurrency.  “To minimize the damages to our customers, we will allow them to withdraw about 75 percent of their balance,” the state