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Lee Kyung-min

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Economy

Woori aims to become best foreign bank in Vietnam

Woori Bank CEO Sohn Tae-seung, center, cuts a ribbon with officials from the bank and the Vietnamese government at an event celebrating the opening of its branch in Da Nang, Nov. 7.―Korean lender opens 10th branch in Da NangBy Lee Kyung-min Woori Bank has opened a branch in Da Nang, Vietnam, further expanding its presence in the Southeast Asian country, it said Friday. The opening on Oct. 25, which followed approval from the Vietnamese central bank a month earlier, is particularly significant as financial authorities there began tightening rules in May to limit the number of foreign banks, Woori said. The branch will handle business including corporate, investment banking and syndicated loans.Provided by a group of lenders, a syndicated loan is structured, arranged and administered by one or several commercial banks or investment banks. “We will spare no efforts in investment and support to make our Vietnam operation the best foreign lender in the Southeast Asian country,” Woori Bank CEO Sohn Tae-seung said. Woori will strengthen its retail business with locals through mo

Nov 8, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Woori aims to become best foreign bank in Vietnam
Banking & Finance

Fates of insurance CEOs up in air amid earnings shock

KB Insurance CEO Yang Jong-heeBy Lee Kyung-min Some heads of insurance subsidiaries of Korea's leading financial groups are not likely to have their term extended, due to weaker-than-expected performances including sales declines and investment losses.Chances are slim that KB Insurance CEO Yang Jong-hee will manage to clinch another term. His second two-year term is set to end in December. The “right-hand man” of KB Financial Group Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo, Yang caused a lot of surprise when he was appointed as the group vice president, a rare promotion that skipped over others many years his senior in a financial group defined by its conservative hierarchy. The promotion came in recognition of a successful merger and acquisition of LIG Insurance, a two-year project of the then group core strategist who maintained strong performance track records since he worked at KB Kookmin Bank. The largest factor clouding his extension is the financial group's performance in 2019. The non-life insurer reported 166.2 billion won ($143.5 million) in net profit in the first half of this y

Nov 8, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Fates of insurance CEOs up in air amid earnings shock
Economy

Shinhan Card to boost cooperation with Amazon

Shinhan Card CEO Lim Young-jin, center, shakes hands with Amazon Global Export head Rotem Hershko, left, and Amazon Global Business Development head Bharat Maheshwari, at Shinhan Card headquarters in Seoul, Nov. 7. Courtesy of Shinhan CardBy Lee Kyung-min Shinhan Card will strengthen its partnership with U.S. tech giant Amazon to enhance customer benefits over the next three years, the firm said Thursday.“We will boost cooperation to provide tailored services to best meet the needs of customer in both countries,” a Shinhan Card official said.The strengthening alliance is aimed at maximizing customer benefits from using Shinhan's online platform PayFan through which services from the U.S. firm will be available. “We are pleased to work with Shinhan Card to provide new ways for customers in Korea to shop on Amazon.com. We are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience and today's announcement is another step in that process,” Amazon Global Director Rotem Hershko said. The cooperation is in line with the group's two key intitiatives ― globalizatio

Nov 7, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Shinhan Card to boost cooperation with Amazon
Economy

Is investor appetite for riskier assets recovering?

gettyimagesbankBy Lee Kyung-min Investor sentiment is showing signs of regaining its risk appetite buoyed by hopes of a trade deal between the U.S. and China, reduced no-deal Brexit concerns and the recent U.S. Federal Reserve rate cut, analysts said Thursday. With more investors turning to high-risk, high-return assets, the Korean stock market has also gained upward momentum. In contrast, gold and the U.S. dollar, seen as safe haven assets, are losing their growth trend.The benchmark KOSPI has continued on a bullish run exceeding 2,100 points last Friday for the first time since Sept. 24, 2018, when it marked 2,101.04. Gold, largely considered a safe asset alongside the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen, has edged up but it is still holding within the $1,480-1,520 per ounce range seen for the last few days. “It's about time,” said Kyobo Securities Research Center chief Kim Hyoung-ryoul. “Investors have been risk-averse for quite a while. The U.S. equity market, for example, is booming and Korea is rather late to join the global move. The bullish sentiment is likely to c

Nov 7, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Is investor appetite for riskier assets recovering?
Economy

250 firms seek to enter global procurement market

Public Procurement Service (PPS) Administrator Jung Moo-kyung, fifth from left, his Romanian counterpart Bogdan Puscas, fourth from left, and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) CEO Kwon Pyung-oh, fifth from right, raise their fists with other officials at the Global Public Procurement Marketplace 2019, held in the Intercontinental Seoul COEX in Samseong, southern Seoul, Nov. 6. Courtesy of PPSBy Lee Kyung-min Over 250 Korean firms are seeking procurement opportunities around the world at a public procurement fair in Seoul, organizers of the event said Wednesday. Jointly organized by the Public Procurement Service (PPS), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the three-day event kicked off at the Intercontinental Seoul COEX in Samseong, southern Seoul, Wednesday. The fair was organized to help small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) gain a competitive edge in entering the international procurement market. Fifty-eight overseas buyers from 29 countries, and 20 international organizations and procurement authorities are pr

Nov 6, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
250 firms seek to enter global procurement market
  • Korea aims to be leader in global procurement market
Economy

Hana's coding education to boost digitization

Hana Financial Group workers attend a class to learn coding at the Hana Global Campus in Cheongna International City in Incheon, in October. Courtesy of Hana Financial GroupBy Lee Kyung-min Hana Financial Group has accelerated its efforts to become a platform-based digital banking services provider by requiring all its workers to learn coding.The group said Tuesday that all employees from the group and its subsidiaries will have to attend a class by December to learn a computer language used to develop apps, websites and software. They will learn how to use “scratch,” a block-based visual programming language, and submit a portfolio of their work product such as games or animated clips. More comprehensive tasks are in store for higher-level managers, who will be required to have a good command of “Justinmind,” a prototyping tool interface that enables efficient management of digitally processed financial data. Group and subsidiary managers will be given an assignment to develop an app, through which the group believes the older generation's understanding of th

Nov 5, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Hana's coding education to boost digitization
  • INTERVIEW Hana to pursue two-track growth strategy
Banking & Finance

Young blood

Woori Bank CEO Sohn Tae-seung, second row seventh from left, poses with university students at the bank's headquarters in Seoul, Nov. 4. The 30 students will create online content to promote the bank over the next four months. Courtesy of Woori Bank

Nov 5, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Young blood
Economy

INTERVIEW 'Basic market principle has no place in Korea'

Seoul National University Economics professor Lee In-ho, who will take the helm of the Korea Economic Association from February, speaks during a recent interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul State intervention sparks speculation in housing marketBy Lee Kyung-min The government's repeated attempt to regulate home prices has led to rampant speculation in the housing market as such move has only fed expectation that there is room for “further hike,” a senior economist said. “The basic market principle has no place in Korea, at least for now,” Lee In-ho, economics professor at Seoul National University, said in an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, Oct. 24.The government and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea has been desperate to curb housing market overheating, saying those in the affluent Gangnam area in southern Seoul with soaring home prices should be “dealt with.” The right and more rational way to do that will be letting the property market boom which would inevitab

Nov 4, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
[INTERVIEW] 'Basic market principle has no place in Korea'
Economy

Asset management firms hit for paying hefty wages despite poor performance

By Lee Kyung-min Workers from 50 leading asset management companies received pay raises amounting to over 22 percent over the past two years despite a clear drop in net profit, data showed Sunday.According to CEO Lab, a financial data provider, workers at the 50 firms saw their combined salaries soar to 578.2 billion won ($495.4 million) as of June 2019, a 22.3 percent increase from 472.7 billion won in December 2016. This came despite a 7.2 percent drop in net profit in the same period, from 577.5 billion to 536 billion won. The hefty increase in pay is mostly explained by their operating profit which jumped to over 716 billion won in the same period, a 5 percent rise from 681.7 billion won.However, the operating profit hike was mostly due to an increase in assets under management which jumped to over 1,046.4 trillion won in the same period, up 18.2 percent from 885 trillion won. Assets under management refers to the total market value of all the financial assets managed by a financial institution including a mutual fund, venture capital firm, or broker on behalf of its clients and

Nov 3, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
Economy

Korea's growth potential at bottom among OECD members

By Lee Kyung-min Korea's growth potential has dropped sharply to third-last among the top 36 advanced economies due to its falling birthrate and rapid population aging, data showed Sunday.Economic growth potential is the gross domestic product (GDP) growth that can be experienced without causing inflation. A failure to achieve this means the economy will have difficulty growing without triggering inflation in the future. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the potential growth rate of Asia's fourth-largest economy dropped to 2.7 percent in 2019, a 0.4 percentage points fall from 2017. This is followed only by Turkey, whose rate dropped from 5.6 percent to 4.9 percent in the period, and Ireland with a sharper drop of 1.6 percentage points from 5.3 percent to 3.7 percent. Eighteen other OECD members, on the other hand, saw increases, including the U.S., whose rate stood at 2 percent in 2019, up 0.1 percentage point from 2017. The OECD outlook is slightly upbeat from that of the Bank of Korea (BOK), which estimated that the rate will fall to be

Nov 3, 2019By Lee Kyung-min
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