Business - The Korea Times

Corporate credit card for Vietnam

A Hana Bank employee promotes the new corporate credit card issued in collaboration with the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) at a Hana Bank's Hanoi branch, Friday. Hana said Wednesday its Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City branches started issuing the new credit card, allowing its corporate customers to get the card without screening. / Courtesy of Hana Bank

Apr 8, 2020By Park Jae-hyuk

CEO Watch Kyobo chairman urged to close feud with investors

By Anna J. ParkKyobo Life Chairman Shin Chang-jae / Courtesy of Kyobo Life InsuranceKyobo Life Chairman Shin Chan-jae has been leading the insurer over the past two decades since he took the helm back in 1999. He was tapped again by shareholders at the end of February to lead his eighth straight term as the firm's chairman starting March 27. The son of the firm's founder Shin Yong-ho, he has been considered to have led the firm's innovations and long-term growth, making the company one of the top three insurers in Korea with over 5 million customers.The chairman now faces daunting tasks ahead this year, and one of the most pressing matters is to resolve a continuing feud with its key investors, as well as to lead the firm's long-delayed initial public offering (IPO) process. The Kyobo Life investor consortium is led by Hong Kong-based Affinity Equity Partners, along with Baring Private Equity Asia, Singapore's GIO and IMM Private Equity, as they acquired a 24.01 percent stake in Kyobo Life back in 2012 for 1.2 trillion won ($970 million), at 245,000 won per share. According to the co

Apr 8, 2020By Anna J. Park

[CEO Watch] Kyobo chairman urged to close feud with investors

Funds for the underprivileged

Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) CEO Bang Moon-kyu, right, poses with Community Chest of Korea Secretary General Kim Yeon-soon after the state-run lender donated 457.5 million won to the charity organization, at the bank's headquarters on Yeouido, Seoul, Monday. The money will be used to assist multiracial families, North Korean defectors and the disabled. / Courtesy of Eximbank

Apr 7, 2020By Kim Bo-eun

Face masks for multiracial children

NongHyup Bank Vice President Ham Yong-moon, third from left, and Korea Child Welfare Center Association Chairman Ok Kyung-won, third from right, pose with other attendees at the association headquarters in Hanam, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. The bank said it donated 3,000 face masks to the association, so that biracial children living in rural areas can protect themselves from COVID-19. / Courtesy of NongHyup Bank

Apr 7, 2020By Park Jae-hyuk

Korean banks in dilemma over dividend payments

Financial Supervisory Service Governor Yoon Suk-heun / YonhapBy Park Jae-hyukDomestic banks have come under mounting criticism regarding dividend payments, after the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) recommended them to follow the trend of global lenders of cutting payments to shareholders during the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen their reserves.According to the financial watchdog, Monday, FSS Governor Yoon Suk-heun said in an executive meeting last Thursday that Korean financial services firms should look to the actions of foreign banks, so as to secure enough total loss-absorbing capacity and maintain their ability to finance the real economy without delay.The FSS cited Citigroup in the United States, HSBC and Standard Chartered in the United Kingdom, and ABN AMRO in the Netherlands.Although economic experts agree that banks cutting their dividends is inevitable under the current crisis, retail investors have slammed the financial authority, alleging it was openly meddling with the management of private enterprises.“A supervisory institution's intervention in individual co

Apr 7, 2020By Park Jae-hyuk

Korean banks in dilemma over dividend payments

Card firms enjoy solid growth in overseas businesses

Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung speaks at a ceremony marking the launch of Shinhan Card's subsidiary, Shinhan Vietnam Finance Company, in Ho Chi Minh City, last July 2. / Courtesy of Shinhan CardBy Kim Bo-eunKorea's major card firms saw their overseas businesses switch to a surplus last year, indicating that their seamless efforts to find new revenue sources abroad have finally paid off amid deteriorating circumstances here.Shinhan, KB Kookmin and Woori Card all enjoyed significant earnings growth in their businesses in Southeast Asia in 2019. Shinhan Card, the nation's largest plastic issuer by assets and net profit, recorded 20.5 billion won in net profit from four subsidiaries in Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia and Kazakhstan.Shinhan Vietnam Finance Company (SVFC) alone posted 18.3 billion won in net profit. SVFC was launched in July 2019 after Shinhan acquired Prudential Vietnam Finance Company, which was the U.K.-based Prudential Financial Services Group's Vietnam unit. "Our overseas earnings surged after SVFC was launched, as it is a subsidiary based on the acquisi

Apr 6, 2020By Kim Bo-eun

Card firms enjoy solid growth in overseas businesses

Haircut to support small businesses

Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC) CEO Wi Seong-bak, left, gets a haircut at a small beauty salon in Seoul, Monday, as part of the state-run firm's campaign to support small businesses having difficulty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The KDIC previously helped the beauty parlor's owner reschedule her debt. / Courtesy of KDIC

Apr 6, 2020By Anna J. Park

Will Korean life insurers follow Japan's path?

gettyimagesbankBy Kim Bo-eunConcerns are growing over local life insurers as they appear to be facing similar circumstances to those faced by their Japanese counterparts in the past, circumstances that saw seven Japanese life insurers go bankrupt two decades ago.While a combination of factors drove the seven mid-sized life insurers and one non-life insurer into bankruptcy between 1997 and 2001, reverse margins based on lowered interest rates was a dominant factor. Japan's life insurers saw strong growth in the 1980s, in step with the country's robust economic growth in the late 1980s that averaged 5 percent. Competition led insurers to offer generous long-term guarantees, of typically 6 percent. They invested in domestic assets such as equities and real estate.However, after Japan's asset price bubble burst in 1992, the country's economy saw a prolonged period of recession and deflation, which was followed by zero interest rates. The low interest rate and negative return on assets created a significant gap between the money made by the insurers and the high guaranteed returns they we

Apr 6, 2020By Kim Bo-eun

Will Korean life insurers follow Japan's path?

Young China expert to spearhead Hana's globalization

Lee Eun-hyungBy Lee Kyung-min Lee Eun-hyung, the newly appointed vice chairman of Hana Financial Group, is expected to accelerate the group's global expansion initiative. Group Chairman Kim Jung-tai recently named Lee as one of three vice chairmen alongside former Hana Financial Investment President Lee Jin-kook and former Hana Bank CEO Ham Young-joo. The 46-year-old, among the youngest of the group's management, will bring a fresh perspective to the group's overseas expansion drive in China, following years of experience as an academic and key industry player. The Korea University graduate earned a master's and doctorate at Jilin University, where he later taught Northeast Asian studies before being recommended as a professor at Beijing University. The appointment of Lee, who served as the group's vice president under the helm of Kim Seung-yu, a former group chairman, is largely considered an indication of his capabilities, experience and network management. Lee will return to the group six years after he was recruited by China Minsheng Investment (CMI), a private equity investment

Apr 3, 2020By Lee Kyung-min

Young China expert to spearhead Hana's globalization

Financial support for restaurant owners

Hana Bank CEO Ji Sung-kyoo, right, poses with Kim Beom-joon, CEO of Woowa Brothers, an operator of food delivery app Baemin, after agreeing to develop a credit scoring system to expand loans for small restaurant owners at the latter's office in Seoul, Thursday. Under the new system, the lender will use the number of delivery orders made through Baemin as one of its key elements in the credit evaluation. / Courtesy of Woowa Brothers

Apr 3, 2020By Baek Byung-yeul

Banking & Finance