Hanwha Life Insurance‘s third-quarter operating income surged by 134.6 percent on-year to 206.9 billion won ($185.5 million), mainly due to a lower loss ratio, the company said Friday. An increase in sales of Hanwha Life‘s guaranteed products has reduced its ratio of insurance claims to premiums, officials said.  The company’s third-quarter earnings was also driven by a decline in the insurer’s reserves set up to cover claims of variable life insurance products,

Market Nov. 13, 2020

South Korea‘s vice finance minister said Friday the government will stabilize the cost to make kimchi by expanding supplies of major vegetables and ingredients.  “We are planning to extend the supply of vegetables in the market by employing either the government’s hoarded stocks for gimjang or those already purchased by local companies from agricultural farms under contract,” Kim Yong-beom, first vice minister of finance, said in a meeting with related officials to

Economy Nov. 13, 2020

Stocks of Asiana Airlines’s key affiliates sharply rose Friday following news report saying Korea’s Hanjin Group, parent of the nation’s largest airline Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, is in talks with the state-run Korea Development Bank to acquire the cash-strapped airline.  Shares of Asiana Airlines, the country’s No. 2 carrier, rose by 19.1 percent to 4,745 won ($4.25) in the early morning trading session, while its low-cost carrier unit Air Busan jumped 16.1 percent t

Market Nov. 13, 2020

     Hur Yin, KB Kookmin Bank’ incumbent CEO, was officially tapped by board members to lead the lender for another year, the bank said Thursday. Earlier in October, KB Financial Group’s committee for CEO nominations had selected Hur as the sole candidate for the bank’s next leader. Hur is the first KB Kookmin chief to serve three consecutive terms. His third term will begin on Nov. 21. Since joining KB Kookmin Bank in 1998, the 59-year-old CEO has held key po

Market Nov. 12, 2020

Hana Bank is set to allow employees to wear business-casual attire to create a relaxed working environment, industry sources said.  The lender has recently decided to adopt a more casual dress code as more than 80 percent of its employees surveyed were in favor of the plan. It has not decided yet when to implement the new dress code. The dress code transition is part of the financial company’s move to prove itself as an innovative bank. “To achieve innovation, the bank must c

Market Nov. 10, 2020

Less than 1 percent of all banking transactions across the country were made in person, data showed Tuesday, suggesting an apparent change in the retail banking landscape favoring non-face-to-face services. In the first half of this year, the proportion of banking transactions carried out in person at bank branches accounted for 0.75 percent of the total. This was sharply down from 1.08 percent in 2019, continuing a downtrend that began in 2015, when the figure was 2.12 percent, said Rep. Yoon

Market Nov. 10, 2020

  South Korea has fared well among the world’s major economies, with a related economic indicator showing a mid-level performance, the Korea Center for International Finance said Monday.  According to the Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery, an index designed to measure global economic recovery by the think tank Brookings Institution and Financial Times, Asia’s fourth-largest economy posted minus 0.76. The figure marked 9th place among 23 leading economies,

Economy Nov. 9, 2020

The number of people residing alone hit more than 6 million as of this year as the prolonged coronavirus pandemic accelerated a stay-at-home trend while shifting interests towards stock investment from savings, an industry report showed Sunday. According to KB Financial Group’s report on single-person households in South Korea, the tally for one-person households reached 6.17 million, which accounts for 30.3 percent of all households. Relative to the entire population, the figure indica

Economy Nov. 8, 2020

    Park Sung-hyun, the incumbent chief strategy and sustainability officer of Shinhan Financial Group has been appointed as a new member to the prestigious Global Steering Committee under the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, the banking group said Sunday.  Launched in 1992, UNEP FI is a strategic public-private association set up by the UNEP and the global financial sector with the purpose of sustainable management. It is working with more than 300

Market Nov. 8, 2020

South Korea's vice finance minister said Thursday uncertainties surrounding the US presidential election will have limited impact on the local financial and foreign exchange markets, vowing for swift countermeasures if market volatility increases.  “The US presidential election risks have already been reflected in the local financial markets. Since the US government is likely to maintain its quantitative easing policies, there is a limited possibility of volatility in the local finan

Economy Nov. 5, 2020

  South Korea is slated to unveil policy packages to promote fair competition between traditional financial giants and emerging tech players as the pandemic accelerates the digital transformation in the local finance industry, a senior official said Wednesday. Responding to the rise of tech giants in the sector, the Financial Services Commission will construct a legal framework to supervise those firms’ presence in the finance market and ease regulatory imbalances between convention

Market Nov. 4, 2020

Woori Financial Group said Tuesday it would implement an employee training program starting this month, to enhance its digital capabilities. For the program, the group will publish storyboards online about how to create digital financial services, make a good use of e-marketing methods and study consumer trends, officials said.  Employees from digital finance units across the banking group’s affiliates -- Woori Bank, Woori Card, Woori Finance Research Institute and Woori FIS, a fina

Market Nov. 3, 2020

Standard Chartered Bank Korea said Tuesday it had launched an online sales channel on Naver, South Korea’s biggest search portal, to support social ventures operated by young entrepreneurs.  The lender has partnered with Naver’s donation platform, called “Happybean,” and opened up an online market there, which will be run until Nov. 30.  As of Tuesday, six social enterprises were selling a wide variety of products ranging from food to clothing, while introdu

Market Nov. 3, 2020

NH NongHyup Bank said Friday that it has partnered with Naver Cloud Platform to use a public cloud system to operate its mobile-based financial services, becoming the first company in the local banking industry to do so.   Under the partnership, the lender will employ a financial public cloud system offered by NCP -- the cloud affiliate of South Korea’s leading internet portal operator, Naver -- when running its own mobile banking application All One Bank, which offers savings and d

Market Oct. 30, 2020

South Korean subsidiaries of foreign banking groups, online giants and daily necessities makers made the annual list for the 10 best companies working toward gender equality among the country’s 500 largest firms, data showed Thursday.  This year’s awarded firms comprised foreign-based lenders Citibank Korea and Standard Chartered Bank Korea, leading local internet firms Naver and Kakao, cosmetics giant Amorepacific, outdoor clothing manufacturer Yongone Corp., LG Group a

Market Oct. 29, 2020