By Kim Jae-won
Citibank Korea paid the highest salary to its inside directors among local banks last year, while Samsung Life ranked top in executive paychecks across the financial industry, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Thursday.
According to data regarding salaries of inside directors released by the financial watchdog, Citibank topped the list with an annual average of 813 million won ($715,000), followed by Hana Bank with 771 million won.
Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) came third with 744 million won, while an average inside director of Standard Chartered Bank in Korea earned 558 million won during the same period. KEB was under the wing of U.S.-based Lone Star Funds at the time.
Among Korean banks, Hana ranked first followed by Shinhan Bank and the Industrial Bank of Korea, with average salaries marking 387 million won and 342 million won respectively. Bigger lenders paid relatively less. KB Kookmin Bank, the nation’s biggest lender, and Woori Bank, the second-largest, paid an average of 305 million and 283 million won respectively.
Insurers paid the most in the finance industry. Samsung Life Insurance shelled out an average of 4.8 billion won to its inside directors in 2011, ranking first among Korean financial companies. Another Samsung Group affiliate, Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance, came second with an average paycheck of 3.9 billion won.
Among brokerages, Mirae Asset Securities paid the most generous paycheck at an average 2.1 billion won nearly double Samsung Securities, which paid 1.2 billion won. Mirae Asset Vice Chairman Choi Hyun-man was handed a special bonus of company’s stocks worth 3.5 billion won as the company acknowledged his contribution over the last 12 years.
Chiefs of savings banks were given higher salaries than their commercial banking counterparts though they posted losses at the time. Solomon Savings Bank Chairman Lim Seok was paid with 410 million won during the 2010 fiscal year, which ended in June, 2011.
Solomon posted 126.6 billion won in net losses during the same period. Lim is currently in custody awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement, breach of trust and bribery.
At other savings banks, such as Jeil, Tomato, Hyundai Swiss II, Jinheung and Gyeonggi also paid an average of between 170 million won and 300 million won to their inside directors despite suffering hundreds of billions of won in net losses.