 FSC Chairman |
“The state governs, therefore it exists,” is the most famous line from Kim Seok-dong, the new chairman of Financial Services Commission (FSC).
The former deputy finance minister is not shy in advocating the government’s strong role in supervising the financial market. He has played a troubleshooter from the government side in many of major events in the finance industry over the past two decades, shuttling between the finance ministry and the financial regulating body.
To foreign investors, he is probably best known for his involvement in the 2003 sale of Korea Exchange Bank to Lone Star Funds, a private equity firm.
The aforementioned remark was made when he was in charge of the restructuring of the credit card industry in 2004 as a bureau chief of the FSC. He was also in charge of the finance ministry’s taskforce during the credit card crisis of 2003, real estate policy reform of 1995 and financial regulation reform of 1997.
Kim, 57, joined the finance ministry in 1981. He is six years junior at the ministry to the outgoing FSC chairman Chin Dong-soo. It is known that the two are close and many think Chin may have recommended Kim as his successor.
Kim has been through several key positions at the finance ministry. During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, he was in charge of the foreign exchange team and witnesses say that he was never afraid of confronting with traders at major banks to stabilize the exchange rate.
He was transferred to the financial regulating agency in 1999. There, he was famously involved in the sale of Korea Exchange Bank to Lone Star Funds.
Prosecutors suspected that he probably did the Texan private equity firm a favor so that it could acquire the state bank at a bargain price in 2004. But he was never indicted for the charge.
He served as the vice chairman of the financial watchdog from 2006 to 2007, and then spent a year as a vice finance minister to February 2008 for former President Roh Moo-hyun.
Since Lee Myung-bak became president in 2008, he has been away from the mainstream policy-making line serving as the chief of Nonghyup Economic Research Institute.
Born in Busan in 1953, Kim earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Seoul National University and passed the state civil service examination in 1979.
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