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Aug 07, 2015
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Jul 23, 2015
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Jul 22, 2015
- Household Debt Management Measures
- The government announced today a package of measures to manage household debt. A consultative body was formed among relevant government agencies in March this year to discuss and come up with comprehensive and preemptive measures to manage household debt in response to potential internal and external risks. The measures are focused on accelerating the improvement of household loan quality, strengthening the assessment of a borrower’s repayment ability, tightening household debt management in the non-banking sector, and strengthening banks’ ability to respond to internal or external shocks. CURRENT STATUS OF KOREA’S HOUSEHOLD DEBTThe household debt has grown fast recently after years of stabilized growth around 6%. Particularly, mortgage lending from banks has been rising fast since the second half of last year , which is attributed to multiple factors such as eased mortgage restrictions and growing demand for loans with interest rate cuts. Mortgage lending by banks which amounted to KRW 375 trillion at the end of March 2015 maintains its financial soundness with a delinquency rate of 0.39% at the end of March 2015. Banks have sufficient capability to absorb potential losses with a BIS capital adequacy ratio of 13.9% at the end of March 2015. Since the government-led KRW 32 trillion program was launched in March this year to help mortgage borrowers switch to fixed-rate and amortized loans, the shares of such mortgages continue to increase and hit 30%, initially targeted by the end of 2016, in the first half of this year. In addition, 70% of household debt is held by households in the highest income brackets – fourth and fifth quintiles. Household financial assets are more than twice household financial liabilities. Given the soundness of household debt, the possibility is limited that household debt risks would cause a systemic risk.As household debt continues to grow faster than income with a slow economic recovery, however, the government needs to take pree
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Jul 22, 2015
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Jul 22, 2015
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Jul 21, 2015
- Statement on Privatization Plan for Woori Bank
- The Public Fund Oversight Committee (PFOC), a deliberative body in charge of privatizing Woori Bank, held a meeting today to discuss how to push forward the privatization and decide on the new plan. 1. The PFOC decided to consider a new approach of selling 30% to 40% out of the government’s 48.07% stake to multiple buyers in smaller portions ranging from 4% to 10%, in addition to its previous plan of selling the controlling stake to a single buyer. After searching for potential buyers, we came to a conclusion that it is difficult to find a single buyer for the controlling stake, while there are multiple potential investors interested in a partial stake, who will form a group of major shareholders to control the board of directors. We expect the new option to draw more diverse market interests. The remaining stake, a maximum of 18.07%, will be open for smaller investors. 2. Woori Bank needs to continue to make efforts to further boost its corporate value in order to facilitate its privatization. 3. In the process of tapping potential buyers, we recognized that market participants are still concerned whether the government would continue to intervene in the bank’s management after the bank is privatized. In order to dispel such worries, the government will improve the implementation of the MOU with the bank even before the completion of the sale in order to ensure the bank’s autonomy in management. Upon the sale, the MOU will expire. We reaffirm that the government will never intervene in the bank’s management. 4. Given insufficient investors’ interest in Woori Bank, it is difficult to proceed with the sale process immediately. We will continue to make our efforts to make the market condition mature enough to attract sufficient demand for the bank. 5. The government has a strong commitment in pushing forward the sale of Woori Bank and will continue to make our utmost effort to privatize Woori Bank as early as possible. * Please refer to the attached PDF for
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Jul 02, 2015
- Plan to Strengthen Competitiveness of Korea's Exchange Market
- The FSC outlined its plan to strengthen global competitiveness of Korea’s exchange market and boost vitality in capital markets to fund innovative businesses.BACKGROUNDFree capital flows and technology innovation intensify competition among stock exchanges across the globe. The world’s stock exchanges are actively seeking mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances to expand their business scope and offer competitive services. A growing number of stock exchanges are turning themselves into a form of holding companies for organizational flexibility in response to changing market environment. Listings of stock exchanges have become increasingly common.The Korea Exchange(KRX) has been isolated from such a global trend, partly due to its status of monopolistic, non-profit public institution. The plan announced today is to reorganize the KRX’s ownership and governance structure to boost competitiveness and vitality of Korean stock exchange market.DETAILED PLAN1. Establish a holding company of the KRXThe FSC will make a revision to the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act(FSCMA) to establish a holding company of the KRX(tentatively named ‘KRX Holding Company’). The KOSPI, KOSDAQ, and derivatives exchanges will be spun-off into subsidiaries of the KRX. Market oversight functions, currently carried out by the Market Oversight Commission under the KRX, will be transferred to a non-profit entity which will act independently from the KRX Holding Company and its subsidiaries. The Korea Securities Depository(KSD) will reorganize its governance structure to minimize a possibility of conflicting interests, given its role as public infrastructure. Clearing business, currently conducted separately by each exchange, will be carried out by a specialized clearing company. The company will also clear OTC derivative products.2. Strengthen competitiveness of KOSDAQThe KOSDAQ will be fostered to strengthen its competitiveness after its spin-off by boosting KOSD
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Jul 01, 2015
- Laws to Curb Market Disruptive Activities to Take Effect from July 1, 2015
- As of July 1, 2015, the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act(“FSCMA”) was amended to regulate so-called “market disruptive activities”, a newly created category of unfair trading activities in addition to the traditional insider trading and market manipulation activities. Under the amended FSCMA, those who engage in market disruptive activities will face a monetary penalty up to 1.5 times the undue profit gained from such activities. KEY PROVISIONS1. Types of market disruptive activities (1) Market Disruptive Activities using information Monetary penalty will be imposed on anyone who uses material non-public information that he or she produced or acquired in relation to his or her job responsibilities, or acquired from insiders and first-level tippees (e.g., second and third-level tippees) or in an improper manner (e.g., computer hacking, stealing, blackmailing, etc.), for his or her trading in listed securities, listed derivatives or OTC derivatives with listed underliers. (2) Market Disruptive Activities manipulating market pricesMonetary penalty will be imposed on anyone who engages in any of the following activities that affect or may affect market prices unfairly even in the absence of the specific intent: (i) Submitting a large number of quotations that are highly unlikely to be executed, or correcting or cancelling such quotations repeatedly after submission;(ii) ‘Wash sale’ without any real intent to transfer the rights;(iii) Matching orders aiming for the profit/loss transfer or tax evasion; and(iv) Spreading rumors or devising a scheme that could mislead others on the supply demand or price of listed securities or listed derivatives, or distort their prices.2. Calculation of Monetary Penalty For the market disruptive activities, monetary penalty up to KRW 500 million may be imposed; provided that if undue profit gained from such activities exceeds KRW 500 million, 1.5 times the undue profit shall be the maximum monetary penalty
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Jul 01, 2015
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Jun 23, 2015
- Plan to Strengthen Microfinance Support
- The FSC announced its plan to strengthen microfinance programs to reduce financial burden of low-income borrowers and to support their self-sufficiency. BACKGROUNDThe government has been driving policy efforts to reduce financial burden of low-income borrowers and enhance their access to financial services through various microfinance programs. The Happiness Fund, launched in March 2013, purchased delinquent loans of 2.8 million low-income borrowers to reduce their debt repayment burden and supported debt-restructuring of 410,000 borrowers as of May 2015. Four major government-backed microloans have also provided a total of KRW 11 trillion to more than 1.1 million low-income borrowers since 2013. In order to expand microfinance support in a sustainable way, the FSC came up with its plan focused on increasing the amount of policy microloans, while reducing debt servicing burden of low-income borrowers. Policy incentives will be also devised to give more benefits to those who faithfully repay their debt. Microfinance policy will be pushed forward to support the self-sufficiency of low-income families and individuals through comprehensive assistance for debt restructuring, job seeking and micro-savings. KEY POLICY TASKS1. Expand provision of policy loans, while reducing financial burden for low-income borrowers The provision of government-backed microloans will be expanded from the current KRW 4.5 trillion to KRW 5.7 trillion per year, which will increase the number of beneficiaries from the current 470,000 to 600,000 per year. To reduce debt servicing burden of low-income borrowers, the ceilings of government-backed micro-lending will be cut by up to 1.5%p starting from August 2015. The FSC will lower the statutory ceiling on lending by non-banking institutions from the current 34.9% to 29.9% through revisions to the Credit Business Act. 2. Provide more incentives for policy loan borrowers who faithfully repay their debt Out of borrowers of government-backed microloan
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Jun 18, 2015
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Jun 09, 2015
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May 11, 2015
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Apr 23, 2015
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Mar 30, 2015
- Additional KRW 20 trillion To Be Provided for the Mortgage Refinancing Program.
- The government will provide an additional KRW 20 trillion starting March 30 for the government’s mortgage refinancing program totaling KRW 40 trillion,1 after comprehensive review and consultation with relevant organizations.2We recognized mortgage borrowers’ high interest and demands to switch to fixed-rate, amortized mortgages at lower interest rates as its initial amount of KRW 20 trillion was sold out in just four days since its launch on March 24.3 The government considered it is the right time to push ahead a “Big Operation” to make the structure of household debt more stable in response to possible interest rate hikes.With the KRW 40 trillion mortgage refinancing program, the government estimates that the share of fixed-rate, amortized mortgages out of banks’ total mortgages would rise by as much as 10 percentage point. The program is also expected to reduce household debt by KRW 1.1 trillion per year as borrowers with switched mortgages worth KRW 40 trillion in total would start to repay the principal and interest payments together over a long term.The additional KRW 20 trillion is the maximum amount that the Korea Housing Finance Corporation can afford to provide additionally, given its capital capacity. There will be no further injection of funding to expand the program.Only those with floating-rate, interest-only mortgages from banks are eligible for the refinancing program. Banks will receive applications for the five working days starting March30. If the value of mortgages applied for the program exceeds KRW 20 trillion, borrowers with lower-price houses will be given a priority.We acknowledged that there is a demand for expanding the eligibility to those with fixed-rate mortgages repaying the principal. The program, however, is not to merely reduce borrowers’ debt servicing burden. The purpose of the program is to improve the quality of household loans by switching floating-rate, interest-only mortgages to fixed-rate, amortized ones.Therefo
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Mar 20, 2015
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Mar 17, 2015
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Feb 26, 2015
- Korea's Household Debt and Policy Response
- 1. CURRENT STATUS OF KOREA’S HOUSEHOLD DEBTAs of end-September 2014, outstanding household credit totaled KRW 1,060.3 trillion with household loans totaling KRW 1,002.9 trillion and merchandise credit1 KRW 57.4 trillion.2The ratio of household debt to income in Korea was 160.7 % (as of 2013), higher than 115.1% in the US(as of 2012) and 135.7% of the OECD average(as of 2012). However, Korea’s household financial assets to liabilities ratio maintained stable levels of 46%, while the ratios in Spain and other major OECD countries have been rising.The quality of household mortgage loans has been improved with proportions of fixed-rate and fully-amortized loans steadily increasing. As of end-2014, the percentage of fixed-rate and amortized loans out of banks’ household mortgage loans stood at 23.6% and 26.5% respectively, exceeding 20% initially targeted by 2014.2. POLICY MEASURES TO MANAGE HOUSEHOLD DEBT GROWTHIt is a natural phenomenon that household debt increases as economy grows. The bottom line is that it is important to boost the economy while maintaining household debt soundness.Under such awareness, the government has been managing household debt with policy measures focused on two aspects. First, secure soundness of the financial system by maintaining the pace of household debt growth at manageable levels, improving the quality of household loans and bolstering financial institutions loss-absorbing capacity. Second, ensure financial soundness of households with measures to boost household incomes and provide tailored financial services to financially-vulnerable households.The government set basic policy directions to manage household debt with「Comprehensive Measures on Household Debt」in June 2011.The policy measures were focused on maintaining the pace of household loan growth at economic growth rates; improving the quality of household loans with a larger share of fixed- rate and amortizing loans; and providing tailored support for low-income househ
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Jan 29, 2015
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Jan 27, 2015
- Plan to Support Convergence of Finance and Technology
- OVERVIEWThe convergence of IT and fin ancial sectors, or ‘financial technology’(here inafter ‘Fintech’), has emerged as a global trend. The trend also affects transaction pattern an d payment environment for domestic consumers and industries with rapidly growing c ross-border commerce and financial trans action on online or mobile platforms.Investment into the Fintech industry continues to grow around the globe, particularly in the U.S. and the U.K. with high e xpectation about the sector’s growth potential. As global IT leaders such as Alibaba and Apple entered payments market, the Fintech se rvices began to draw attention of the financial sector. Advanced countries including the U. K. actively support the growth of the Fintech indu stry to seize new growth opportunities.Korea has been less active in f ostering the Fintech sector so far due to regulatory barriers and financial security concern. As an IT powerhouse with the advanced financial industry, Korea has great potential for growth in the Fintech sector. In order for Fintech to bring innovative changes to financial services, we need to overhaul current financial regulatory framework mainly focused on offline serv ices. The FSC will also support financing of Fintech businesses and significantly lower barrier s to entry for electronic financial businesses. Financial security, however, is a prerequisite to t he growth of Fitech sector. To this end, the FS C will maintain a strict stance on security and c onsumer protection, while allowing financial service providers more room in their business o perations.1. Regulatory paradigm shift Minimization of ‘ex-ante’ regulationsSecurity review and evaluatio n for means of authentication will be abolish ed to allow financial firms to deliver consumers innovative convenient financial services and introduce more efficient authentication means on their own responsibility. (Revision to regulations related with electronic financial transaction within the second
