The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) have decided to expand their partnership in supervising the internal control initiatives and contractual terms and conditions financial firms apply to their consumers through their products.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has begun to look into ways to induce further competition in the local banking industry, aiming to break up the current oligopolistic system.
Commercial banks here have come under criticism for cutting their savings interest rates on a larger scale than those from loan products. According to data from Korea s top five banks - KB, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NongHyup - the average interest rate for their savings product with a one-year maturity was within a band from 3.36 to 3.6 percent as of Wednesday. This is a drop of more than 1 percentage point from November last year when they promised to offer annual returns of more than 5 percent for their major savings products.
Korea Federation of Banks Chairman Kim Kwang-soo met Luxembourg Finance Minister Yuriko Backes and discussed ways of cooperation in the banking sectors of the two countries, the federation announced on Wednesday. The areas of topics discussed ranged from conventional offline banking to digital banking, wealth management, and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) practices.
Korea plans to allow offshore financial companies to directly trade Korean won and foreign currencies here in a bid to attract international investments and expand the foreign exchange market, financial authorities announced on Tuesday. To cover the trading hours of the U.S. and European markets, Korea, Asia s fourth-largest economy, also plans to run foreign exchange trading hours almost around the clock.