More than 400 financial industry workers punished

Over 400 officials working in South Korea’s financial industry were submitted to disciplinary action so far this year for corruption and insincerity, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.

The FSS announced on Sunday that 447 workers at local banks, brokerages, insurers and credit card firms faced penalties this year as of Friday for moral hazard and basic faults such as not properly checking the customers’ real names, embezzlement of customers’ deposits, leaking information and abetting tax evasion.

Among them, 95 were executives and the rest employees. The total figure is double that of the same period last year, which was 222, and is already nearly 74 percent of the total count for 2011. The amount of fines collected from them is 2.79 billion won ($2.47 million) so far, which already surpassed that of the whole of 2011.

At Hanwha General Insurance, for example, 39 executives were punished at the same time for unfair bargaining over project finances and negligently managing customer information. The company received a caution and was fined 24 million won.

Some brokerages including Woori Investment & Securities leaked customers’ information to institutional investors, and an employee at Dongyang Mutual Savings Bank was even caught withdrawing 14.6 billion won from 330 customer deposits.

Among the reprimanded executives, 11 among them were advised to resign from office, 13 were suspended from office, and rest received warnings or cautions. Most of the executives are working for savings banks and insurers, at 39 and 41, respectively.

Among reprimanded employees, six were dismissed from the office, 32 suspended from office, 54 had salaries cut and the rest received warnings and cautions.

Among the total, 176 are working at insurance companies, 95 at brokerages, 93 at banks, 73 at savings banks and 10 at credit card firms.

By Park Min-young (claire@heraldcorp.com)