Chin signs cooperation pact with US

By Kang Seung-woo

Staff reporter

Korea's top financial regulator Chin Dong-soo has made a brisk trip to Canada and the United States to sign a comprehensive agreement for a joint effort to bring stability to the global financial sector.

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said Thursday that Commissioner Chin visited Toronto, Canada, to attend the Financial Stability Board (FSB) meeting ahead of the G-20 meeting there.

Chin hopped over to Washington to have a meeting with Ben Bernanke, the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, for in-depth discussions over regulatory matters on a bilateral and global level.

He also visited the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) in Washington to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

The MOU calls for both nations to issue notices before conducting investigations or slapping punishment against local bank branches from their home countries.

It also urges them to notify each other of local business expansion of banks within their home countries and to provide information to the host country on how the banks comply with their country's local regulations, the FSC said.

"The latest deal helped pave the way for the two countries to boost cooperation and information sharing to conduct efficient cross-border supervision on both countries' banks operating in each country," the FSC said.