South Korea’s market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service on Tuesday vowed to toughen its supervision of illegal short selling this year to promote fair market competition. “We will ramp up inspections on illegal practices of short selling by strengthening the work capacity of our special investigative team in charge of detecting securities fraud,” the FSS said in its 2021 policy plan. The FSS has a team of in-house investigators focused on probing financial crime cases un

Woori Bank’s Indonesian unit has received a higher grade in capital requirement imposed by the Southeast Asian country’s market watchdog, bringing it one step forward in expanding its business portfolio in the region, officials said Sunday. As of December last year, Bank Woori Saudara raised a combined capital of 5.2 trillion rupiah, or approximately 413 billion won, which falls under a BUKU3 rating, the third-highest in Otoritas Jasa Keuangan’s four-tier bank capital class

A group of local retail stock traders is working on a global anti-short selling campaign that may involve forging a partnership with WallStreetBets -- a regiment of amateur investors on the US social-networking website Reddit that drew attention for taking action against sophisticated hedge funds last month. Jung Eui-jung -- head of the Korea Stockholders Alliance, which represents some 22,000 stock investors -- told The Korea Herald that he had gone to the online forum and proposed a cros

The Financial Services Commission said Tuesday it will draft a policy framework this month to allow local platform operators, including Naver and Kakao, to enter the insurance market to expand customer access to digitized financial products. Under the envisioned plan, the financial regulator will ease the current regulations to enable the internet companies to develop and sell micro insurance products, in accordance with its “sandbox” program. The regulatory framework is aimed a

Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo on Friday pledged all-out efforts to establish a monitoring system to detect illegal short selling before the financial regulator allows the practice to resume in May.  Short selling is a trading tactic whereby investors immediately sell borrowed stocks on a bet that share prices will fall, allowing them to later repurchase the stocks and return them to the lender. Some investors sell stocks without borrowing, known as “naked&rdqu

South Korea’s current account surplus rose to a two-year high last year amid the prolonged economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to a sharp fall in imports and overseas trips, central bank data showed Friday.  The country’s current account surplus for 2020 amounted to $75.28 billion -- up $15.6 billion, or 26.1 percent, from the previous year -- according to preliminary figures released by the Bank of Korea.  This marked the highest current account sur

South Korea’s market watchdog has informed top executives at Woori Financial Group and Shinhan Bank they may be punished over a financial fraud scandal involving Lime Asset Management, Financial Supervisory Service officials and industry sources said Thursday.  Sohn Tae-seung, the incumbent Woori Financial Group Chairman and former chief executive of Woori Bank, was informed that he may be suspended from his duties, which is the second-heaviest reproach in the regulator’s five

  South Korea’s top financial regulator said Wednesday that it has decided to extend a temporary ban on short selling until May 2, amid growing pressure from retail investors voicing concerns over possible damages in battles with sophisticated hedge funds. The ban was previously set to end March 15.  The Financial Services Commission will then implement a partial reactivation of short selling from May 3, while establishing a stock loan system in the meantime, which enables ret

South Korea’s top financial regulator has advised the nation’s internet-only lenders to expand the supply of loan products for borrowers with low to moderate credit scores, officials said Wednesday. “While the percentage of those with credit scores below 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 accounted for nearly 40 percent of all borrowers at first-tier banks, the country’s existing internet-only lenders Kakao Bank and K bank posted some 36 percent and 20 percent, respectively,”

The number of new credit loans via overdraft accounts has been on a sharp rise as South Korean retail investors are scrambling to borrow money for stock investment, fueled by a recent market bull run, industry data showed Sunday. The five major banks here -- KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NH NongHyup -- saw their customers open a total of 43,143 overdraft accounts between Jan.1-28, which equates to a combined average of nearly 2,000 daily. The overdraft balance surged by 1.21 trillion w

South Korea’s top financial regulator said Thursday it has decided to advise major banks to maintain their dividend payouts below 20 percent of net income during the first half of this year in response to the prolonged economic fallout of COVID-19.  Under the latest guidance by the Financial Services Commission, local lenders are expected to cut payments to shareholders by about 5 to 7 percentage points. Last year, the country’s four major banking groups -- KB Financial, Shinha

The price gap between high and low-priced apartments nationwide widened to the highest level in 12 years in December last year, showing deepening housing polarization in the country, according to data Wednesday.  Apartment prices of the top 20 percent group reached an average of 951.6 million won ($861,198) in December, soaring by more than 200 million won from a year earlier, the monthly housing price trend report released by KB Kookmin Bank showed. Meanwhile, prices of low-cost apartme

The International Monetary Fund has raised its growth outlook for South Korea this year to 3.1 percent from the earlier figure of 2.9 percent estimated in October last year, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said Tuesday. The nation’s economic growth projection improved largely thanks to the government’s aggressive policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis, including economic stimulus packages as well as strict quarantine measures, according to a report released by the ministry on

South Korea’s market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service is slated to order local banks that sold the problematic funds structured by Lime Asset Management to compensate investors who were victims in the massive fraud, officials said Monday. Lime Asset has been under an FSS probe since July 2019 for having concealed huge losses and inflated investment returns to keep its customer base. It suspended fund redemption worth an estimated 1.6 trillion won ($1.4 billion). The dispute arbit

Woori Financial Group Chairman Sohn Tae-seung has urged the group‘s subsidiaries to gear up for business innovation this year by benchmarking global tech giants Amazon and Google, officials said Sunday.  “Just as the innovative tech behemoths Amazon and Google did, let’s seek innovation with a mindset like it’s always day one, to get back to the basics and start work with a renewed mind and to surprise the market by achieving a groundbreaking performance,” s