The board of KB Financial Group is expected to meet again Friday to discuss follow-up measures after dismissing the group’s chairman who is accused of a series of management lapses but refuses to step down.
After hours of talks Wednesday that ended close to midnight, the board said it decided to dismiss Lim Young-rok. The board on Monday had recommended that he resign voluntarily, but Lim sued the regulating agencies who punished him in defiance, reasserting his innocence.
The board will meet again on Friday to discuss future measures, including the process of selecting a new chairman, KB Financial said Thursday.
Lim, who took the helm of the country’s No. 2 banking group by market value in July 2013, has come under mounting pressure to resign over a series of scandals such as massive data leaks and illegal loans.
More recently, the banking group has been embroiled in an ugly internal feud over a change of computer system at its mainstay banking unit, Kookmin Bank.
In April, the bank’s board approved the expensive transition to a new computer system, based on reports compiled by the bank that were full of fabricated information.
The reports underestimated the risks of the system change and scaled down the related expenses, according to the Financial Supervisory Service, the country’s financial watchdog. (Yonhap)
