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Lee Kyung-min

Korea Times AI content 2 team Reporter

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Leadership vacuum feared to undermine budget ministry's policy drive

The Lee Jae Myung administration’s ability to spearhead fiscal reform is facing a major setback, hamstrung by a leadership vacuum at the newly established Ministry of Planning and Budget, which is feared to lead to an overall delay in economic policy drives, market watchers said Monday. They say it could take at least one to two months for a new candidate to clear the National Assembly confirmation process, subsequently pushing back the government’s plan to frontload 75 percent of the state budget of over 727 trillion won ($505 billion) in the first half of this year. Central to the issue is former scandal-fraught minister nominee Lee Hye-hoon. President Lee withdrew the nomination late Sunday as allegations mounted, including workplace abuse, real estate speculation, preferential housing subscriptions and family-related advantages in education, university admissions and employment. Had the nomination been railroaded, the Lee administration would have been under constant pressure, since the compromised leadership and widespread backlash would have undermined functions of coordinatin

Jan 26, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Leadership vacuum feared to undermine budget ministry's policy drive
Tech & Science

CNCF award winner glad to contribute to Korea’s breakthrough in open-source cloud ecosystem

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute senior researcher and special fellow Son Seok-ho said he is glad to contribute to Korea’s breakthrough in the global open-source cloud ecosystem, Friday. He won the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Community Awards 2025, the highest honor in the cloud-native open-source world, becoming the first Korean to win the award. The award was presented during KubeCon and CloudNativeCon North America 2025, held in Atlanta, Ga., in November of last year. “I hope my contribution would bolster Korea’s open-source capabilities and leadership, strengthening the country’s technological sovereignty amid intensifying global artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing.” The awards are chosen from around 270,000 global contributors. Individuals who have made outstanding contributions across project development, documentation and community governance are selected. Son was honored in the Lorem Ipsum category, a renamed version of the previous top documentarian award, reflecting his continuous and meaningful contributions to multiple CN

Jan 23, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
CNCF award winner glad to contribute to Korea’s breakthrough in open-source cloud ecosystem
Others

No. of overseas capital gains taxpayers surges amid US equity boom

The number of Korea’s retail investors paying capital gains tax on overseas stock investments more than doubled last year, driven by a strong U.S. equity rally, as policymakers remain concerned about capital outflows and currency volatility, market watchers said Friday. The surge reflects the shift in retail investor behavior since the COVID-19 pandemic. The domestic capital market lagged far behind its global peers, pushing many toward U.S. "Magnificent Seven" stocks: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla. According to data submitted by the National Tax Service to Rep. Park Sung-hoon of the main opposition People Power Party, 523,709 investors filed overseas stock capital gains tax returns for income earned in 2024. This is a 152.7 percent jump from 207,231 a year earlier and the highest level on record. Under the law, investors with overseas stock holdings must report their net annual profits to the tax agency in May of the following year. They pay a 22 percent capital gains tax on amounts exceeding 2.5 million won ($1,700). The sharp increase in overseas stock ho

Jan 23, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
No. of overseas capital gains taxpayers surges amid US equity boom
Economy

Korea's economy grows 1% in 2025: BOK

Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1 percent in 2025 from the previous year, driven by strong exports despite weakness in the construction sector, central bank data showed Thursday. It was half the 2 percent expansion of 2024. GDP contracted 0.2 percent from the previous quarter in the first quarter of 2025, rose 0.7 percent in the second quarter and 1.3 percent in the third, and turned to a decline of 0.3 percent again in the fourth. According to an advance estimate from the Bank of Korea, last year’s total growth was driven mainly by a continued increase in exports amid solid overseas demand. Private consumption and government consumption also showed growth, offsetting sluggish domestic investment. Construction investment posted a deeper contraction, a sustained decline due to weak property markets and delayed infrastructure projects. Manufacturing growth slowed, but the service sector expanded, contributing positively to overall economic growth. As for the fourth quarter of last year, construction was the biggest drag on growth. The central bank said that had construction been

Jan 22, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Korea's economy grows 1% in 2025: BOK
Banking & Finance

BOK teams up with Naver to launch world-first central bank sovereign AI service

Bank of Korea (BOK) and Naver have jointly launched a finance- and economy-focused sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) system, the first such initiative by any nation’s central bank, they said Wednesday. The landmark step in digital sovereignty has led to the unveiling of Bank of Korea Intelligence (BOKI), an AI service developed over 18 months through public-private cooperation and operated entirely within the central bank’s internal network. According to BOK, Naver provided cloud infrastructure and its large language model, HyperCLOVA X, while the central bank standardized over 1.4 million documents for AI applications. BOKI is installed on an on-premise system within the BOK’s internal network, making it a fully sovereign AI platform, a first among global central banks. This is an exception to Korea’s network separation rules, which require financial entities’ internal systems to be isolated from external networks. The decades-old policy seeks to prevent hacking and data leaks, but has been criticized for stunting cloud-based financial innovation efforts. The BOKI drive, a

Jan 21, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
BOK teams up with Naver to launch world-first central bank sovereign AI service
Banking & Finance

Hana Bank strengthens online platform for foreign customers

Hana Bank has upgraded its foreigner-only financial platform, Hana EZ, to strengthen non-face-to-face financial services for international customers in Korea, the lender said Wednesday. The move is significant as the number of foreign workers, students and long-term residents continues to grow, increasing demand for accessible and multilingual mobile banking solutions. Hana said the latest upgrade enhances both financial and daily services within the app, allowing foreign customers to manage banking and administrative tasks without visiting a bank branch. The services are integrated into the platform, a function Hana says will lower entry barriers to financial services and improve overall convenience for non-Korean customers. A key feature is MileEZ, a new rewards service through which users can store points not only by using financial services such as overseas remittances and exchange rate alerts, but also by participating in non-financial activities such as daily check-ins, in-app games, friend invitations and flight searches. Monthly activities are rewarded with mobile gift vouchers. Ha

Jan 21, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Hana Bank strengthens online platform for foreign customers
Banking & Finance

Korean won to strengthen in H2 despite continued US stock buying, US-bound corporate investments

Despite growing oncerns over the Korean currency’s rapid depreciation toward the 1,500 won per dollar level, a Bank of America (BofA) Global Research economist is painting a rosier outlook for the local currency. “We remain relatively optimistic for the Korean currency in coming quarters on the back of broader U.S. dollar weakening. We expect the won to hover at 1,395 won by year-end 2026,” Benson Wu, Korea and China economist at BofA Global Research, said in an interview with The Korea Times. Import price inflation was relatively low at around 1 percent as of last month even as Korean currency depreciated, he said, although it typically takes a few months to pass through to imported goods inflation. “In a Bank of Korea (BOK) paper in 2022, they estimate that 10 percent depreciation in the Korean currency would boost headline consumer price inflation by 0.6 percentage points. But the central bank said last month that the figure would lead to 0.3 percentage points," he said. "The BOK raised their concern on foreign exchange (FX) pressure on inflation in the monetary policy meetin

Jan 21, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Korean won to strengthen in H2 despite continued US stock buying, US-bound corporate investments
Policy

Gov't to ease regulations on cloud-based software at financial firms

Financial authorities are moving to ease network separation rules that have long constrained the use of cloud-based software by financial services providers, in a major step toward modernizing a tightly regulated financial IT environment, market watchers said Monday. The reform is expected to significantly lower compliance barriers for financial firms, accelerating digital transformation and elevating Korea’s regulatory framework closer to global standards. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) and Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said they will run a notice period before the revisions to the law governing electronic financial supervision. The revisions will allow financial entities to use cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications on internal business networks without going through the “innovative financial services designation” process, as long as they meet strict security requirements. Central to the move is a partial easing of Korea’s network separation rules stipulating that financial entities’ internal systems should be isolated from external networks. The

Jan 19, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Gov't to ease regulations on cloud-based software at financial firms
Policy

Shinhan Asset Management, Pareto Securities fined for illegal short selling

The Securities and Futures Commission under the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has imposed a combined 3.97 billion won ($2.69 million) in fines on six domestic and foreign asset managers and securities firms for engaging in naked short selling, market watchers said Monday. Naked short selling refers to the practice of short-selling shares without first borrowing them from another party. The large scale of fines, the first since the full resumption of short selling last March, is indicative of a tougher regulatory stance in the coming months, reflecting a policy shift toward “zero tolerance” enforcement. Previous similar violations have been sanctioned, but penalties were negligible in size and impact. The authorities’ stringent measures are meant to illustrate that Korea’s short selling market is not only open but strictly managed, an approach intended to bolster investor confidence while strengthening the market’s credibility on the global stage. According to government sources, Shinhan Asset Management was fined 370.6 million won after authorities found it had placed sel

Jan 19, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Shinhan Asset Management, Pareto Securities fined for illegal short selling
Banking & Finance

Woori chairman puts AI transformation at center of digital finance push

Woori Financial Group is repositioning itself as an artificial intelligence (AI) financial platform, declaring the technology to be the core operating logic of the group’s growth, the group said Sunday. The move indicates that Woori believes technology-led productivity will define the group’s competitiveness, rather than relying primarily on balance sheet expansion. Woori Financial Group Chairman Yim Jong-yong unveiled the strategy at the group’s 2026 management strategy workshop, Friday, attended by about 400 executives and employees. He characterized the past three years as key ones that led to the group’s full privatization, stronger capital ratios and completion of the bank's portfolio as a comprehensive financial services provider, including insurance and securities businesses. This year, he said, will open a new era where productive and inclusive finance, coupled with group-wide AI transformation (AX), will create deep synergies. Central to the drive is AX. Woori plans to implement 344 AI use cases by next year, including 200 at banks and 144 at non-bank affiliates. AI use wi

Jan 18, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Woori chairman puts AI transformation at center of digital finance push
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