Korea Times Politics & City Reporter
Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Korea Investment & Securities and NH Investment & Securities are to be mired in a class action lawsuit due to the controversial IPO of Fadu, a fabless semiconductor unicorn company that went public in early August.
Naver Pay has significantly increased its overseas payment network, spanning over 42 countries in Asia, Europe, the U.S. and Australia.
This year's initial public offerings (IPOs) made on Korea's main benchmark, the KOSPI, are expected to record the poorest performances in the past five years, due mainly to increased market volatility from soaring interest rates and unfavorable external conditions.
MG Community Credit Cooperatives is set to undergo major shifts in its leadership and management system by weakening the authority concentrated on its chairman and by restructuring the entire system under a newly established professional CEO position.
Interest in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) investments seems to be waning in Korea due to a worsening economic outlook and continuing high interest rates. The trend becomes evident in both money flows observed in domestic exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the theme of ESG investment, and the funds' returns during the past months.
Retail investors accounted for 64 percent of annual transaction amounts in the Korean stock markets last year, the highest ratio in global stock markets, showing the relative strength retail investors wield over the local stock markets compared to other countries. In the U.S. or Japan, the ratio is about 30 percent on average.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the U.S.-based Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) are currently conducting a weeks-long inspection of Samil PwC, one of the big four accounting firms in Korea, along with Samjong KPMG, Deloitte Anjin and EY Hanyoung Korea. The inspection comes as part of the two financial watchdogs' regular inspection schedule.
Korea's major commercial banks are set to actively strengthen their overseas businesses next year, aiming to significantly raise their profit shares from international markets, according to industry officials, Friday.
Foreign investors have raked in Samsung Electronics, HYBE and SK hynix shares during the first four trading sessions, after a complete short selling ban began on Monday.
Chung Jae-ryong, a former head of Statistics Korea, published his first full-length romantic novel titled "Dancing with Aurora" earlier this month. It's drawing significant media attention due to the novelist's unique background as a high-ranking economic bureaucrat, and because of his advanced age in making his debut as a romance novelist.