Nonghyup says will compensate for all losses

The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, on Monday said it would offer full compensation for losses incurred from its recent network crash.

“Our compensation will fully cover any form of damage our clients suffered in the aftermath of our network problems,” Lee Jae-gwan, a Nonghyup executive said at a press conference.

The scope of compensation will include not only interest costs and soured credit records, but also other losses inflicted on customers. 

All damages of up to 500,000 won ($460) will be compensated at the nationwide Nonghyup branches, while those more than this amount will be first put up for deliberation at headquarters, Nonghyup said.

“We will be forming a deliberation committee and bringing in legal experts to be able to provide compensation based on legal grounds,” said Nonghyup spokesman Cha Jong-in.

More than 300,000 complaints registered so far, including emergency requests for compensation, he added.

Most of the complaints were related to credit card bills, as many have said they were unable to use their Nonghyup-issued cards or that their bills were not paid on time, forcing them to incur interest and penalties because their payments became overdue or that their credit records were sullied because of the overdue bills.

Some, however, issued more serious complaints, such as that they were unable to meet the purchase deadline for homes they were seeking to buy because they were unable to use automatic teller machines.

As further measures to ease customers’ minds customers, Nonghyup said it would offer favorable deposit schemes and hold sales at its nationwide chain of produce stores, the “Hanaro Club.”

Officials said they hoped to fully normalize customer services by April 22.

They maintained that personal information had not been leaked despite the network problems.

Nonghyup, the largest banking network in the country with more than 30 million customers, came under intense public scrutiny last week after its banking network suffered a complete meltdown on April 12.

Nonghyup Chairman Choi Won-byung issued a public apology and said the company has rebooted its system and was trying to prevent a recurrence.

Nonghyup on Monday said the meltdown was caused by an “intentional” act of cyber terrorism.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)