Shinhan Bank employee sacked for embezzling W131m

An employee of the country’s third-largest bank was belatedly found to have misappropriated a massive amount of money from the bank last year, regulators said Monday.

The entry-level employee was caught embezzling about 131 million won ($127,900) from the bank over the course of several months for personal use, the Financial Supervisory Service revealed.

Shinhan Bank detected the case in December last year and immediately reported the case to the FSS, according to the bank officials.

The bank dismissed the employee in January but did not file criminal charges against him, as he paid back all the money, the company said.

“We believe the case was not so serious as to be taken to court,” a public relations official said, citing the amount that was embezzled and the fact that the culprit had returned it in full.

The case was reported about 10 months after 67 Shinhan Bank officials were fined more than 87 million won for having illegal access to financial records. In response to a growing number of scandals and irregularities in financial institutions, the FSS said it would carry out an irregular inspection on local banks this year.

(monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)