Chairman Lee Eog-weon of the Financial Services Commission held a media briefing on May 21 and announced ten key achievements and progress in the implementation of financial policies in the first year of the Lee Jae Myung administration. Over the past year, the FSC has sought to push for a major overhaul in the financial industry to make financial services more productive, more inclusive, and more trustworthy, and has been able to produce notable achievements in the following areas.
Progress and Achievements
I. Decouple Finance-Real Estate Ties & Redirect Finance to Productive Sectors
a) Building foundation for “Korea premium” in capital markets
Capital market reform has been a high priority for this administration. Various reform measures, such as introducing the “one-strike-out” principle for market manipulation, making corporate directors subject to the fiduciary duty to all shareholders, and requiring listed companies to permanently retire treasury shares, have been carried out in a swift manner. In this process, the rigidly boxed-in KOSPI index surged past 8,000 points for the first time in a single year, showing signs of shedding the disgrace of “Korea discount” and moving closer to “Korea premium.”
b) Launching KRW150 trillion National Growth Fund to propel growth for next 20 years
In December 2025, National Growth Fund was launched in the size of KRW150 trillion to propel economic growth for next 20 years and ensure an adequate supply of funds to strategic high-tech sectors. The fund has moved quickly to select 13 important megaprojects that can have significant ripple effects across different regions and industries and has already decided to inject KRW8.4 trillion in 11 megaprojects. From this amount, KRW4.6 trillion is being directed at regional economies and KRW1.2 trillion in direct investment for the development of future high-tech industries (e.g. AI computing).
c) Promoting regionally well-balanced growth through targeted supply of finance
In October 2025, the FSC introduced a set of measures intended to propel the supply of finance to boost innovation and growth in regional economies. The National Growth Fund plans to invest 40 percent or more of its total investment in regional economies, and policy financial institutions plan to boost their regional supply target from 40 percent in 2025 to up to 45 percent by 2028. In this regard, the National Growth Fund (54.7 percent) and policy financial institutions (44.1 percent) have already exceeded their target levels of regional finance for this year. For private financial companies, the FSC has eased rules on their loan-to-deposit ratios to encourage an expansion in the supply of finance to regional economies.
d) Overhauling capital regulations to free up productive finance capacity
Making capital regulations and requirements more reasonable for banks and insurance companies have helped to free up their productive finance capacity. Through this, financial companies are expected to supply about KRW1.242 quadrillion to productive sectors (KRW616 trillion from private financial companies and KRW626 trillion from policy financial institutions). In this year alone, the financial sector has already provided a total of KRW92 trillion to productive sectors, which include KRW9.9 trillion in venture capital.
II. Transform Financial Services in Support for People’s Livelihoods
e) Enhancing financial access for lower-income and vulnerable groups
The FSC has sought to alleviate the interest burden facing financially vulnerable groups by significantly bringing down interest rates for policy-based microloans from 15.9 percent previously to single digits. For young adults and the borrowers who have faithfully made repayments, low interest rate lending programs (4.5 percent) have been newly launched to help boost their access to finance.
f) Introducing “New Leap Fund” to facilitate quick removal of long-term personal debts
In October 2025, a personal long-term debt restructuring program (“New Leap Fund”) was launched to quickly assist the removal of long-term personal debts for delinquent debtors. The program was able to quickly purchase delinquent debts worth KRW8.4 trillion, which helped to immediately halt debt collection activities targeting about 660,000 individuals. From this, personal delinquent debts worth KRW1.8 trillion held by some 200,000 socially vulnerable individuals (basic livelihood security recipients, persons with disabilities, etc.) were written off first to provide quick financial assistance to them.
g) Bolstering responses against financial crimes infringing upon people’s livelihoods
The government has stepped up responses to combat the types of criminal activities that infringe upon people’s livelihoods, such as illegal predatory lending and voice phishing (vishing) scams. Illegal private loans at exorbitant annual rates (more than 60 percent) have been made invalid for both principal and accrued interest, and a comprehensive one-stop assistance program has been established in March this year to provide more effective assistance to the victims of illegal private lending. The government has significantly boosted its anti-vishing capacity and inter-agency collaboration and response to prevent vishing scams, and this has led to a considerable drop in the volume of vishing-related damages being reported (down 31.6 percent from the previous year).
h) Introducing assistance programs tailored to specific needs of small businesses
The FSC has met with small businesses 12 times in the past year to more closely listen to their needs and draw up financial support programs specifically tailored to the needs of small business owners. In this regard, a special debt workout program has been launched to assist some 1.43 million individuals struggling with high interest rates, and a set of interest reduction programs has also been introduced to help to ease their interest burden. In addition, the FSC is planning to introduce a small business-tailored financial assistance program in the amount of KRW10 trillion and develop an AI-based credit rating framework focused on the needs of small businesses (SCB or Small Business & Self-ownership Credit Bureau).
III. Make Finance More Trustworthy through Effective Risk Management
i) Ensuring financial market stability and risk management
The FSC has strengthened management over household debt through various policy tools intended to stamp out speculative demand in the real estate market, while ensuring protection for non-speculative homebuyers. As a result, the household debt to GDP ratio has been brought down to a stable level. In the wake of the conflict situation in the Middle East, the FSC immediately took steps including the mobilization of market stabilization programs worth KRW100 trillion-plus and maintained close monitoring over market situations to ensure the maintenance of stability in financial markets.
j) Introducing financial services that can help to boost public convenience
The FSC has sought to develop and introduce various forms of financial products that can help to bring about tangible improvement in people’s daily lives and boost public convenience. To facilitate young adults to accumulate assets early on, the FSC has introduced the youth future savings program, which is scheduled to be launched in June this year. To assist the elderly with retirement income, the FSC introduced an insurance service enabling life insurance policy holders to convert death benefits into lifetime access in their retirement. In addition, from May 22, ordinary citizens will be able to purchase and invest in the National Growth Fund (KRW600 billion), which will help the public share the profits and success of investment in key strategic sectors.
Further Plan
The FSC will continue to work on bringing about improvements to key policy agendas and seek additional policy tasks that will help to assist people’s livelihoods and boost the real economy. At the same time, the FSC plans to continuously seek ways to make qualitative and structural improvements in the financial system and make efforts to promptly bring about tangible outcomes in the drive to make a sweeping overhaul in the financial industry.
* Please refer to the attached PDF for details.