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Nov 10, 2010
- Proposed amendments to the Enforcement Decree of the Banking Act Approved by Cabinet
- BackgroundPrior to the enforcement of the amended Banking Act*, proposed amendments to the Enforcement Decree of the Banking Act have been approved at the cabinet meeting on November 9. The proposed amendments are to be enforced starting November 18, 2010 after the President’s approval and announcement.* The amended Banking Act, announced on May 17, 2010, is scheduled to be enforced starting November 18, 2010.Key Amendments to the Banking Act Key Contents of the amended Enforcement DecreeA. Banks’ overseas expansionIn principle, banks seeking overseas expansion are allowed to submit a report to the authorities afterwards, except for only those who fall into one of the following categories prescribed by the amended Enforcement Decree.① (bank soundness) a bank’s BIS ratio or its CAMELS rating falls short of required criteria.② (investment method) a bank plans to make investment in or pursue an MA with a below- investment-grade local corporation.③ (business scope) a bank wants to engage in business activities other than banking, concurrently-run, and subsidiary business.④ (investment destination) a bank plans to expand into a below-investment-grade country or a country that has no diplomatic tie with KoreaFurther details are stipulated by the Regulation on Supervision of Banking Business**a bank’s BIS ratio is less than 10%, or its CAMELS rating is below 3; credit ratings of local subsidiaries are below B+; and sovereign ratings of the host country are below B+ etc.B. Disqualifications of outside directorsMost of disqualifying conditions for outside directors set by Best Practice Guidelines on Corporate Governance in Banks (announced in Jan. 2010) were prescribed in the Regulation on Supervision of Banking Business previously and are now to be directly regulated under the amended Banking Act. Details such as definitions of a “corporation which has a special business relationship with a bank”* and a “person who cannot carry out his/her duty faithfu
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Nov 01, 2010
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Oct 27, 2010
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Oct 18, 2010
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Oct 15, 2010
- FSB Plenary Meeting and BCBS Meeting held in Seoul
- The 6th Plenary Meeting of Financial Stability Board and the 137th Basel Committee on Banking Supervision Meeting will be held at COEX Convention Center in Seoul on October 20 and 19, respectively.The Financial Stability Board (FSB) was created in April 2009 as the successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) by the Group of 20 in its London summit, which includes FSF members and 12 more countries such as Korea and BRICs. It coordinates financial regulatory and supervisory standards at the international level and Korea has participated since its inaugural meeting in June 2009.The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), established by the central bank Governors of the Group of Ten countries in December 1974, was broadened to include more members in 2009. It formulates broad supervisory standards and guidelines in banking supervision. Korea became a member in March 2009.FSB Plenary MeetingThe Plenary Meeting is aimed at discussing and coordinating opinions among member countries so that the task of financial reform assigned by heads of G20 could be completed in the summit held in Seoul.This meeting will bring together about 70 heads of national authorities responsible for financial policy and supervision and central banks from 24 countries and 12 international financial institutions including IMF, WB, OECD, BCBS, IOSCO, and IAIS.They will discuss reducing moral hazard of systematically importance financial institutions (SIFI), strengthening bank capital and liquidity regulation, reforming OTC derivatives market infrastructure, FSB Outreach program and reducing dependence on external credit ratings and other major financial reform agenda.FSB Outreach program is held with non-member financial authorities to provide information on FSB’s major financial reform agenda and encourage the implementation of the agenda as agreed in G20 Toronto summit.BCBS MeetingThe Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will meet to finalize issues related to its regulatory reform
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Oct 05, 2010
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Sep 29, 2010
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Sep 20, 2010
- Notice of Changes to Banking Supervision Regulation
- The FSC has issued a notice of changes made to the Regulation on Supervision of Banking Business in preparation of implementing the amended Banking Act taking effect on November 18 and adopting the K-IFRS in 2011.1. Reporting obligations for banks’ overseas expansionBanks seeking overseas expansion are allowed to submit a report to the authority afterwards, except for only those who fall into one of the following categories. They are still required to submit their expansion plan in advance to the authority for consultation.(1) (Bank soundness) a bank’s BIS ratio is less than 10%, or its CAMELS rating is below 3(2) (Business scope) a bank wants to expand its business beyond its core and non-core businesses(3) (Destination) a bank wants to expand into a country whose sovereign rating is below B+* or does not exist in the first place.*** Nigeria, Argentina, Cambodia, Mozambique, etc.**Iran, Iraq, Laos, Ethiopia, etc.(4) (Overseas subsidiary) an overseas subsidiary’s credit rating is below B+2. Consumer protection(1) When bank customers sign or revise a service contract with a bank, the terms of a contract should be submitted to compliance officers for review and reported to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC).(2) Banks are obliged to ①publicly disclose their contract conditions including interest rates, fees, and transaction terms on their website; ②provide their customers with a written document that stipulates contract terms; and ③ensure their customers fully understand terms of the contract.3. Internal governance rules(1) Banks’ internal rules and policies of governance should be publicly disclosed on their own website and the Korea Federation of Banks website.(2) Internal rules and policies regarding governance should be made public immediately upon their creation or revision. Activities of a bank’s board pursuant to internal rules should be disclosed by the end of the following month after a regular shareholders’ meeting.4. Preparations for the K-IFR
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Sep 15, 2010
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Sep 02, 2010
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Sep 02, 2010
- Stimulation Plan for Long-term KTB Futures Trade Approved by FSC
- To promote trading of long-term KTB futures, the KRX amended its Derivatives Market Business Regulation and the Financial Services Commission (FSC) approved the amended Regulation on September 1, 2010.As the follow-up of the plan for promoting long-term KTB futures that was devised jointly by the Financial Services Commission, Ministry of Strategy and Finance and KRX, the latest amendment streamlined the regulations related to KTB futures.The key amendments are 1) the harmonization of regulations governing KTB futures to ensure the balanced growth of short-term and long-term KTB futures, 2) stabilization of market operation and 3) reinforcement of market making function in the Derivatives Market.1. Harmonization of regulations governing individual KTB futuresBy minimizing the differences in the regulations applied to short-term and long-term KTB futures, it has been attempted to make easy the trade linking the short-term and long-term KTB futures contracts and enhance the accessibility of KTB futures.(1) To ensure the settlement expediency of 10-year KTB Futures, the plan is made to change the final settlement method from physical delivery to cash settlement. Accordingly, like the case of 3-year KTB Futures, the final settlement price of 10- year KTB Futures will be calculated on the basis of yield of basket bonds for final settlement and present value model for underlying bond and the final settlement day will be changed to T+1 day, i.e., the day after the last trading day, from the existing T+2 day. (2) By considering the recent market interest rate, the coupon rate of underlying bonds of 3-year and 5-year KTB Futures would be lowered to 5% per year from 8% per year in order to enhance the hedge effectiveness.(3) The plan is made to increase the trading unit of 10-year KTB Futures to KRW 100 million at par value from KRW 50 million at par value and lower the quotation unit to 0.01 from current 0.02. However, the tick value of KRW 10,000 will be kept unchanged.(4)
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Aug 26, 2010
- Measures to Support SMEs Hit by International Sanctions against Iran
- In order to support local small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that suffered losses fromtheir business with Iran due to reinforced international sanctions against Iran, the Korean government has planned measures to support them.1. Providing policy funds for SMEsGovernment funds such as the SME Business Promotion Fund (SBP Fund) and a fast-track lending program will be utilized to support local SMEs trading with Iran.(1) For SMEs with large exposure to Iran, the government will provide emergency loans and defer repayment of principal for outstanding loans.In particular, for those who have a greater chance of recovery from the loss incurred by international sanctions against Iran, the government will offer emergency loans at a 3.7~5.4% interest rate for three years, up to KRW 500 million for one company. Companies who are undergoing corporate restructuring conducted by financial institutions or whose incurred loss exceeds KRW 100 million are qualified for emergency loans.For companies who experienced losses from their trade with Iran, the government will grant a one-and-half-year grace period for their existing debts while leaving their maturity period (5~8 years) unchanged.(2) For SMEs temporarily under liquidity crunch, the government will provide liquidity through a fast-track lending program. If companies trading with Iran apply for the fast-track lending, they will be granted special guarantees by the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KTFC) on a preferential basis.**The KODIT and the KTFC will provide 65%~75% guarantees for newly extended loans, up to KRW one billion.The banking sector will also provide liquidity for SMEs by extending new loans or rolling over existing debts. The Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (KTIC) will also launch a liquidity support program for SMEs.(1) To ease liquidity constraints for SMEs, the KTIC is to speed up its review process to provide compensation as soon as possible when expo
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Aug 02, 2010
- Plans to Enhance the Short-term Financing Market
- Current Status-quo of the Short-term Financing MarketBy short-term financing, we mean wholesale financing among financial institutions by trading or issuing under 1- year maturity products such as Calls, RPs, CPs, and CDs.An analysis of current situation by individual market sectors① (Call Market) Daily average volume of KRW 33 trillion*, which takes up about 50% of the short term financing market.* Reduced down to KRW 11 trillion level, but recently resumed to the pre-crisis level.(’08.9: KRW 29 trillion, ’09.3: KRW 11.5 trillion, ’09.12: KRW 30.2 trillion, ’10.6: KRW 33.1 trillion)② (RP) Trading volume (outstanding balance base) has been consistently growing.(’07: KRW 65 trillion, ’08: KRW 69 trillion, ’09: KRW 72 trillion). Most of the transactions (87%) are large client based.③ (CD) Dropped to KRW 79 trillion level due to the curb on Loan-to-Deposit Ratio regulation, while market trading volume has gone down to KRW 4.5 trillion daily average.Source: Bank of KoreaProblems Detected in the Short-Term Financing MarketThe overriding problem in the short-term financing market is that it is too much concentrated on the Call market which causes distortions to the market function and may entail latent systemic risk.- The convenience of Call transactions using credit based lending with high liquidity and low interest rate triggered the growing dependency of the Call market by financial institutions.- Composition of the short term financing market (as of May ’10): Call (50.5%), RP (16%), CP (17.2%), CD (16.4%) - The Call market’s function has been misled as ‘funding sources’ for the secondary financial institutions’ (e.g. securities houses and mutual savings banks) operating capital and in turn used to invest in high yielding short term KTBs.- In particular, excessive ‘call money’ by securities houses could become a source of potential systemic risk when hit by a sudden credit crunch.- The over-usage of the Call market also led to the unde
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Jul 30, 2010
- Privatization Plan for Woori Financial Group
- The Public Funds Oversight Committee has held the 22nd Meeting today to finalize its plans to sell the remaining shares of Woori Financial Group (WFG) held by the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC), where a consensus has been reached that after successfully making two block sales, once in November 2009 and once in April 2010, totaling 16% of WFG, bringing the total amount of shares held by the KDIC down to a 50% level, an appropriate condition has been set to finalize the privatization of WFG.The privatization will be carried out with the three basic principles: maximizing recovery of injected public funds; making an early privatization; and contributing to sound and productive advancement of the financial industry.(1) Method of privatizationIn line with the three basic principles, the sale of WFG shares will be done through two steps of open competitive bidding process by domestic and foreign investors; first, by preliminary bidding; and second, by final bidding.(2) Simultaneous sale of WFG and regional banksBoth the shares of WFG and the shares of regional banks held by WFG (Kyungnam Bank and Kwangju Bank) will be sold separately but up for the bidding at the same time.Although the two regional banks are under WFG, it has been viewed as more effective to sell them separately due to them not having an integrated data processing network with WFG and with low level of synergy effect. Moreover, because their value would be greater when sold separately taking into account their regional focused businesses.However, the bidding will be carried out simultaneously to prevent any delay in the overall privatization process.The sale of regional banks will be for 50% plus ne share or done through a completemerger. And the actual amount of shares of WFG to be sold or whether it will be done through a merger will be determined and finalized with close discussions with the to-be- selected sales advisory firms. (3) Selection of sales advisory firmsConsidering the size and
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Jul 28, 2010
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Jul 27, 2010
- Stimulation Plan for Long-term KTB Futures Trade
- The Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Financial Services Commission and Korea Exchange (“KRX”) have jointly prepared the plan to stimulate trading of long-term Korea Treasury Bond (“KTB”) Futures.Recently, an opportunity to promote the trading of long-term KTBs has been presented as a result of growing issuance amount and trading volume of long-term KTBs. As the need to stimulate the 10-year KTB Futures trading volume grew, the task force made of representatives of research community, public sector and private sector was created in January 2010 to prepare the plan for promotion of long-term KTB Futures trade.The causes for poor trading of long-term KTB Futures may be examined in terms of cash market, market making and trading regulations.First, although the annual issuance amount of short-term and long-term KTBs is balanced , the trading condition in the secondary market is dominated by the short-term KTBs. For example, as of the end of June 2010, the outstanding amount of KTBs with maturity longer than 10-year is 46% of total outstanding amount of KTBs, but the trading volume of KTBs with maturity longer than 10-year is mere 13% of total trading volume of KTBs.Second, the market making for 10-year KTB Futures is rather inadequate and the primary dealers (“the PDs”) who account for over 53% of trading volume of 10-year KTBs do not actively participate in trading or market making of 10-year KTB Futures.Last, the physical delivery, which is the method used for final settlement of 10-year KTB Futures, acts as constraint in trading long-term KTB Futures. The investors are not familiar with the physical delivery settlement and as trading of long-term KTBs in the cash market is not brisk, the investors felt burdened in securing the deliverable KTBs for the final settlement by physical delivery.As the favorable condition has been created to stimulate the trading of long-term KTB Futures, it is expected that trading of long-term KTBs in the cash market would thr
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Jul 21, 2010
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Jul 20, 2010
- "Sunshine Loans" for Low-Income Households
- 1. BackgroundIn the wake of global financial crisis, low-income households have become more in need of loans; however, loans for them have become less available as financial institutions for low- income households have been more concentrated on equity investment and project financing. As a result, low-income households have been increasingly relying on private lenders and credit business providers, thus facing the burden of paying higher interests.Moreover, as the Bank of Korea (BOK) recently raised the base interest rate, if it leads to arise in market interest rates, low-income household would bear higher burden of inter st payment.(1) Starting from the end of July, approximately KRW 10 trillion will be extended over the next five years through the “Sunshine Loan” program by financial institutions* for low- income households.*The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, the National Credit Union Federation of Korea, the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives, and mutual savings banks(2) The loans will be extended to individuals whose credit rating ranges from level 6 to level 10 or small business owners whose annual income is less than KRW 20 million.(3) Interest rates will be set by each financial institution but with a ceiling* in place.*As of July 20, the interest rate ceiling is 10.6% for financial cooperatives, 13.1 % for mutual savings banks. The ceiling may be adjusted depending on changes in funding costs of one-year maturity term deposits.(4) The Sunshine loan program aims to help low-income households start up business (up to KRW 50 million), provide operating capital for business (up to KRW 20 million), or support urgently needed living expenses (up to KRW 10 million).(5) Assuming that each individual makes a KRW 10 million loan, one million people are expected to benefit from the Sunshine loan program over the next five years. The Sunshine loan program will reduce the low-income ho
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Jul 01, 2010
- Amendments to the Insurance Business Act
- Amendments to the Insurance Business Act were passed at the National Assembly June 29, 2010 to strengthen insurance consumer protection.1. Strengthening insurance consumer protection(1) Insurers are subject to a stricter obligation to inform consumers of their insurance products. Selling their insurance policies, insurers have to provide prior information on their policies such as contract terms and conditions in which benefit payments are denied and receive consumers’ written consent. In violation of the obligation, an insurance company has to pay a fine of up to 20% of premium payments, or sales representatives and sales agencies are subject to a 20 million won or less fine.(2) The amended Act adopted a suitability or “Know-Your-Client” principle. Under the principle, insurers have to be well informed of consumers’ income, wealth, and investment purpose and recommend appropriate products that meet consumers’ needs. The principle will be applied first to universal insurance products.(3) In order to protect consumers from false or exaggerated advertisements, the amended Act specifies what should be included or not when advertising insurance products. Advertisements should include prior notices that recommend consumers to read brochures, contract terms and conditions, warning against possible loss of the principal. By omitting or providing insufficient information, advertisements should not mislead consumers to believe that benefit payments are fully guaranteed without any condition. Consumers should be well informed of the maximum amount of benefits, conditions to deny benefit payments, and immunity clauses.(4) For insurance contracts specified in the Presidential Decree (e.g. medical reimbursement insurance), it is an insurer’s obligation to confirm whether a consumer already has the insurance.(5) Insurers have to specify in their brochures conditions in which benefit payments are denied.(6) Policy holders are allowed to confirm, withdraw, and cancel* t
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Jun 25, 2010
- 2010 Credit Risk Evaluations on Large Companies
- Evaluation ResultsCreditor banks announced today a total of 65 companies for restructuring after completing their credit risk evaluations on 1,985 companies with outstanding credit lines of more than KRW50.0 billion.Of the 65 companies, 16 were constructors with 9 rated C and 7 rated D; 3 shipbuilders with 1 rated C and 2 rated D; 1 shipping company rated C; and the remaining 45 large companies of which 27 were rated C and 18 rated D.Mainly as a result of the downturn in the construction industry, 16 companies were tapped for restructuring while the number of shipbuilding and shipping companies selected for restructuring fell from 17 last year.The Korean government is giving full consideration to help the restructuring process move forward as fast and effectively as possible while minimizing the weight of restructuring on the companies’ subcontractors.Impact on Financial Company SoundnessThe debt obligations of the 65 companies tapped for restructuring in this latest evaluation was KRW16.7 trillion, including KRW6.8 trillion in constructors PF contingent liabilities. Of the total, KRW11.9 trillion was due to banks, KRW1.5 trillion to savings banks, and KRW700 billion to credit specialized financial companies.Additional reserves for bad debts that financial institutions are expected to set aside for this round of restructuring is around KRW3.0 trillion, but its impact on financial companies’ soundness should be limited given banks’ strong financial position to absorb losses. As of end-March 2010, domestic banks’ BIS ratio was 14.7%, up from 12.31% as of end-2008 and 14.36% as of end-2009.Currently banks’ had KRW2.2 trillion in reserves set aside for bad debts while savings banks had KRW200 billion and other financial institutions KRW600 billion.*Please read the attached file for details.
