Korea’s financial hub plan held back by regulations

South Korea’s decade-long effort to become a regional financial hub has been held back by excessive regulations and oversight not found in other markets, a report by the lobbying group for large businesses said Tuesday.

The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) report, based on input from 15 large and medium-sized foreign financial firms operating in the country, list complaints that largely berate inconsistencies, focus on irrelevant details and excessive regulatory filings.

South Korea has set out to become a financial market center in the early 2000s. But despite steps meant to ease restrictions and offer incentives to draw in foreign firms, according to May findings by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the world’s second-largest auditing and professional service network provider, capital city Seoul and second-biggest city Busan did not make the top 10 financial hub list.

London, New York, Singapore, Toronto, San Francisco, Paris, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Sydney and Chicago made PwC’s cut. (Yonhap)