Financial authorities said Wednesday it has punished the chiefs of the nation’s three largest local credit raters over illegally allowing employees to engage in both sales and running credit assessments.The sanctioned chiefs include Yoon In-sub of Korea Rating, Cho Wang-ha of Korea Investors Service Inc., and Lee Sang-kwon of NICE Investors Service Co.The three were banned from engaging in the financial sector for three years, said officials from the Financial Supervisory Service.The officials s

Japan Tobacco International Korea rolled out Mevius LSS Option Evo1, the latest brand from its flagship Mevius lineup, on Tuesday in a bid to increase its presence in the local market for super-slim cigarettes. JTI said the Mevius LSS Option Evo1 had the same distinctive flavor as the rest of the products in the LSS special series. The product also includes a purple capsule inserted into each cigarette to reduce the amount of smoke and smell it gives off, according to the tobacco maker. The Mevi

The country’s major conglomerates created fewer jobs last year in a reflection of the lackluster economy, market research firm CEO Score reported Wednesday. The firm, which specializes in chaebol data, revealed that 274 subsidiaries of the top 30 conglomerates, including LG, Hyundai, Samsung and SK, recruited just over 1 million employees as of late 2014, down 0.3 percent from a year ago. Last year’s hiring accounted for only a 1.3 percent rise in the total number of employees. “It is very worri

The government is planning to lessen the financial burden of low-income households by slashing the interest rate on microfinance products. The Financial Services Commission, the country’s financial regulator, said Monday that it is seeking measures to lower the interest rate on several trademark loan products for young adults and the low-income households, such as Smile Microcredit Program, Sunshine Loan and New Hope Loans. The plan aims at helping the low-income debtors, who borrowed money from

Critics claim financial regulators have been negligent in cracking down on the excessively high or illicit lending rates for low-income earners charged by private moneylenders. Regulators recently instructed first-tier commercial banks to offer lower interest rates to homeowners.Though the average rate on mortgages or housing-collateralized loans ranged between 3 and 5 percent, some middle- and high-income households can access lower rates due to the government’s effort to revitalize sagging pro

The total number of loans by the Bank of Korea hit the highest level in 21 years in February, as more loans were approved to local companies for facility investment, data showed Wednesday. Loans provided through BOK’s money issuance reached 15.4 trillion won ($13.9 billion) as of the end of February, up 66.5 percent from a year ago, according to the BOK report.The level of loan issuance marks the highest since July 1994 when it reached 15.6 trillion won, excluding inflationary factors. Since the

South Korea’s household mortgage debt more than tripled in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period a year ago, according to data by the banking sector and the Financial Supervisory Service.Mortgage debt hit 323.5 trillion won at the end of March, up more than 7 trillion won from 316.5 trillion won at the end of last year, according to data from seven local commercial lenders.This marks the first time the increase has reached over 7 trillion won, further raising concerns ove

The government said Monday that it would accelerate the launch of the country’s biggest tech cluster in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, to develop the area into a Korean version of Silicon Valley. Government ministries agreed to lift the greenbelt development restrictions on the area by the end of this year, six months ahead of the initial schedule. To meet the December deadline, the ministries are pushing to submit the master development plan for the Pangyo Creative Economy Valley and file for state