Business - The Korea Times

Citibank Korea reports earnings fall amid phased shutdown of retail banking

Citibank's logo is seen at its office in Seoul, Feb. 15. YonhapBy Lee Min-hyungCitibank Korea reported a double-digit earnings decline in the first quarter of this year amid weak profit growth in wealth management, as the lender is in the phased shutdown of retail banking. According to the company, its net profit between January and March came in at 40.1 billion won ($31.23 million), down by 16.8 percent from the previous year. Even if the Korean subsidiary of the U.S. banking group enhanced a net interest margin during global monetary tightening, the company failed to enhance revenue particularly in wealth management as well as bond and foreign exchange derivatives.“Citi's corporate finance business has achieved a solid earnings performance despite the volatile market circumstances,” Citibank Korea CEO Yoo Myung-soon said. “We are going to do the utmost to attain a goal of sustainable growth by enhancing risk management capabilities to deal with volatile financial markets in a timely manner.”After Citi made a group-wide decision to close down Korea's consumer

May 15, 2022By Lee Min-hyung

Citibank Korea reports earnings fall amid phased shutdown of retail banking

Samsung Life Insurance Q1 net profit down 72.9 pct. to 302.2 bln won

Korea Times file Samsung Life Insurance reported a first-quarter net profit of 302.2 billion won ($234.5 million), Friday, down 72.9 percent from a year earlier.The company said in a regulatory filing that it posted 323.8 billion won in operating profit for the quarter, compared with 1.33 trillion won a year ago. Sales fell 7 percent to 9.3 trillion won. (Yonhap)

May 13, 2022

Samsung Life Insurance Q1 net profit down 72.9 pct. to 302.2 bln won

Local brokerage firm stocks hit 52-week lows amid pessimistic outlook

gettyimagesbankBy Anna J. Park Due to the deteriorating market outlook as well as worsened year-on-year Q1 earnings, local brokerage firms' stock prices hit new 52-week lows on Thursday. As both the domestic and global stock markets continue to plunge with the U.S. Federal Reserve's squeeze on liquidity, the forecast for the brokerage sector is unclear, casting shadows on future upward movements of the stocks. In addition, brokerage companies' quarterly earnings have also fallen from the same period last year, with a significant decline in the average number of daily transactions. Following a disappointing first-quarter earnings announcement on Tuesday, Kiwoom Securities' stock price rewrote its 52-week low for the second consecutive session, as it fell to 83,200 won ($64.50) at Thursday's closing. The brokerage company's first-quarter operating profit posted 213.2 billion won, a 38.6 percent fall from the same period last year. In terms of quarterly net profit, it fell by 47.11 percent year-on-year, standing at 141.1 billion won. The earnings were also lower than the market consensu

May 13, 2022By Anna J. Park

Local brokerage firm stocks hit 52-week lows amid pessimistic outlook

Shinhan introduces data-driven anti-money laundering system

A promotional image for Shinhan Bank's anti-money laundering monitoring system. Courtesy of Shinhan BankBy Lee Min-hyungShinhan Bank has introduced a big data-powered anti-money laundering system, in a preemptive move to detect any signs of unusual transactions, the lender said, Thursday. The Shinhan-Trade Based Money Laundering (S-TBML) allows the bank automatically to monitor any signs of money laundering or suspicious transactions.The system is operated by the lender's big data in trade and foreign exchange, which is used to prevent any risks on such illicit transaction acts in advance, according to the lender.Shinhan Bank started developing the system in 2018, by teaming up with Shinhan DS, the financial IT subsidiary of Shinhan Financial Group. In September of last year, the lender also succeeded in making the system more sophisticated, with artificial intelligence (AI) and optical character recognition (OCR).The AI and big data have in recent years been the talk of the town in the financial industry here, with more banks and financial firms introducing the technologies with a l

May 12, 2022By Lee Min-hyung

Shinhan introduces data-driven anti-money laundering system

Deloitte Anjin accused of negligence in audit reports

Deloitte Anjin's headquarters located on Yeouido, Seoul / Courtesy of Kim Do-hyungBy Anna J. Park Doubts and concerns are rising as to whether Deloitte Anjin, one of big four accounting firms in Korea, is failing at internal controls, as it not only turned out to have received the largest number of corrections from the financial regulator in audit reports during the past few years among the top four accounting firms, but also has been engaged in some of the most scandalous financial fraud cases.According to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the country's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) detected a total of nine violations from November 2017 to May last year in Deloitte Anjin's audit reports on listed companies. The SFC inspects local accounting firms' audit reports on listed companies on a regular basis to determine whether the firms are faithfully implementing auditing roles.During the same period, the three other major firms, Samil PwC, KPMG Samjong and EY Korea were corrected four, five and four times, respectively. During the last three business

May 12, 2022By Anna J. Park

Deloitte Anjin accused of negligence in audit reports

BC Card launches phone pay platform

BC Card's Phone Pay enables easy payment that only requires a user's mobile phone number. Courtesy of BC CardBC Card launched Phone Pay, an easy payment platform based on each user's mobile phone number. If a customer chooses to pay with Phone Pay at online shops that are franchisees of the platform, the customer simply inputs a six-digit PIN for payment linked to their mobile phone number.BC Card is a South Korean financial services company headquartered in Seoul. It is Korea's largest payment processing company, providing end-to-end payment services, primarily to financial institutions, as well as to local merchants.The credit card company is currently applying for a patent for the overall payment process of the Phone Pay platform.The service is open to any customer aged 14 or over who has subscribed to a mobile phone service of any carrier in the country. They have only to register their phone number, methods of payment, and PIN when they use the service for the first time. All the information is encoded by tokenization technology of the credit card company.Currently, BC Card is t

May 12, 2022

Allink launches in-store NFT membership with 7-Eleven

-Eleven's NFT membership service enables customers to get Klay coins when they pay with the 7-Eleven app. Courtesy of 7-ElevenBy Yoon Ja-youngAllink, a NFC tag-based information transfer solution provider, announced that it is launching 7-Eleven Korea's NFT membership service, in partnership with Ground X and Klaytn, Kakao's blockchain technology subsidiaries. Consumers who have 7-Eleven NFTs stored in a Klip digital wallet are rewarded with Klay coins when they pay via the 7-Eleven app, by tapping on Allink's in-store tag. It is likely to be the world's first application of real-time information from tagging by an in-store NFT membership service, according to Allink. “The future of blockchain technology lies in extending services from the virtual world to the physical one,” said William Wooseok Jang, the chief strategy officer (CSO) at Allink. “Following the launch of the world's first real-time in-store NFT membership service, we will continue to enable other blockchain-based technologies to rapidly expand into in-person services,” he added. Koo In-hwe, the

May 12, 2022

Allink launches in-store NFT membership with 7-Eleven

Hana Financial opens new daycare center to share with SMEs

Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo, third from left, poses with Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service President Kang Soon-hie, fourth from left, and children as well as other guests at the opening ceremony of Hana's daycare center in Cheongna, Incheon, Wednesday. Courtesy of Hana Financial GroupBy Yoon Ja-youngHana Financial Group opened a large daycare center in Cheongna, Incheon, for children whose parents work at small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as for its own employees. It is part of the group's project to build 100 daycare centers to help people in local communities and tackle the low birth rate.The group held an opening ceremony for the daycare center on Wednesday. Hana Financial Group funded the purchase of the land, the construction and the operation. With a 3,960 square meter space, the center will take care of around 300 children.Hana has been building daycare centers around the country since 2018 with the aim of setting up 100 centers by 2023, benefiting around 10,000 children. It includes daycare centers in rural and fishing villages wh

May 11, 2022

Hana Financial opens new daycare center to share with SMEs

Hanwha Asset Management launches US alternative investment ETF

Kim Sung-hoon, head of ETF Strategy & Business Development at Hanwha Asset Management, poses before a press conference at its headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of Hanwha Asset Management.By Lee Min-hyungHanwha Asset Management has launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) of alternative investments in the U.S., allowing investors to diversify their asset portfolios in a more stable manner amid growing inflationary pressure, the company said Wednesday.The ARIRANG U.S. alternative investment Top 10 MV ETF features investments in major U.S. listed companies that focus on alternative investments ― such as the global top three private equity firms (PEFs), Blackstone, KKR and Carlyle. The portfolio of the ETF also includes international alternative investment firms, including Apollo Global Management and Brookfield Asset Management, the Hanwha affiliate said.The companies in the portfolio focus on alternative investments, with more than 75 percent of their sales or managed assets coming from the alternative asset class.Alternative investments refer to investments in non-conventio

May 11, 2022By Lee Min-hyung

Hanwha Asset Management launches US alternative investment ETF

Shinhan Bank's innovative digital store attracts younger customers

Shinhan Bank's innovative store located in GS Supermarket at Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, May 9. Korea Times photo by Lee Yeon-wooElderly customers might need more time to adjust to new systemBy Lee Yeon-wooShinhan Bank launched a new store last month, promising to offer innovative services to customers by increasing accessibility and extending operating hours. At the digitalized bank inside GS supermarket's Gwangjin-Hwayang branch in Seoul, customers expressed a desire to see more stores like that, but some older customers seemed to be struggling while trying to use the service.The new store that Shinhan Bank launched in collaboration with GS Retail on April 12 is getting rave reviews from young office workers who found it hard to visit banks during working hours.“It is good to have this kind of store near home available to visit after coming back from work. I hope more stores will be set up in various locations,” Kim, a 29-year-old office worker based in Seoul, told The Korea Times on Monday.Kim used the digital desk to have her credit card reissued last month.“Even though

May 11, 2022By Lee Yeon-woo

Banking & Finance