The financial regulator has resumed its scrutiny into Woori Bank’s Tokyo branch over its alleged illicit lending in exchange for kickbacks or the possible creation of slush funds.The probe will continue despite the recent weeklong suspension after a former executive of the overseas branch was found dead in an apparent suicide during the inspection process, officials at the Financial Supervisory Service said Monday.The FSS has been looking into whether former senior executives at the Tokyo branch

The Bank of Korea’s recent data showed that the gap between the nation’s overall economic growth and ordinary people’s sentiments is likely to widen in 2014.The central bank has been unveiling an adjusted gross domestic product by taking the employment factor into consideration in a bid to measure the disparity between the conventional index and real public sentiment.In its latest announcement over the yearly economic outlook, the central bank forecast that the economy would grow 4 percent this

The chief of the nation’s top financial watchdog on Wednesday admitted a supervision failure in his comments on a series of irregularities revealed in the local financial sector over the past few months. In his policy briefing to the National Assembly, Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Choi Soo-hyun mentioned the recent string of financial mishaps and scandals including illicit lending and massive data leaks. In addition to ethical misconduct on the part of the employees and lax internal contro

Policymakers are poised to adjust the targets for a special excise tax in reflection of the changing consumption patterns, Finance Ministry officials said Wednesday.The excise tax, which is also called the special consumption tax, has been levied on items such as foreign premium goods and automobiles. It has also been a tool to discourage spending on items that may harm the public interest.“For an updated list, the government is closely benchmarking the cases in developed countries including the

Hyundai Engineering & Construction, the nation’s No. 1 builder, is extending its boundaries in the overseas market as it has won a series of orders from the Middle East and South America over the past few months.In February, the construction unit of Hyundai Motor Group landed the $6 billion (6.4 trillion won) contract to build an oil refinery in the Karbala region in Iraq in coordination with several major Korean builders.The consortium led by Hyundai E&C received the project from the State Comp

Policymakers said Thursday that the government was considering easing 41 major regulatory hurdles by the end of 2014 as follow-up measures to President Park Geun-hye’s recent deregulation initiative.At a meeting of economic policymakers, the Finance Ministry said it would accept 41 out of a total of 52 proposals on deregulation made during the televised talks between the president and local business people a week ago.“Out of the 41, the government will ease or lift regulatory hurdles for 27 of t

A massive data leak has been detected in the insurance sector, according to Korean authorities on Monday.The police and the Financial Supervisory Service said that the private information of some 13,000 policyholders has been stolen from 14 insurance companies operating here.“The data involved the names of the subscribers, their resident registration numbers and cell phone numbers,” an FSS official said. “We plan to take appropriate measures (against the insurance firms) after closely looking in