Watchdog orders SC Bank Korea to mend biz practices

The Korean unit of Britain-based banking giant Standard Chartered PLC has been ordered by local financial authorities to improve its decision-making process.

Officials of the Financial Supervisory Services said Monday that this was after the bank failed to meet some business practice standards regarding dividend payouts to its parent firm.

The FSS observed that only a limited number of high-ranking officials of SC Bank Korea had attended a meeting to decide on the dividend payout to its parent firm. The watchdog concluded that a final decision was reached without properly assessing the lender’s capital adequacy and other business conditions.

The watchdog has ordered SC Bank Korea to meet the requirements for prior reviews of a lender’s capital adequacy ratio and its asset sales by a risk-management committee or the board of directors.

In 2014, SC Bank was speculated to have delivered some 1 trillion won ($812 million) in dividends to its parent firm. For last year, the lender has said it would pay out less than 300 billion won.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)