Chairman Kim Byoung Hwan of the Financial Services Commission presided over a meeting with officials from related organizations and savings banks on March 20 and held discussions on ways to enhance the role and capacity of savings banks. In his opening remarks, Chairman Kim spoke about the importance of making consistent efforts to ensure prudential management and restore market confidence in the savings banks sector by establishing a sufficient level of loss absorbing capacity. At today's meeting, participants also discussed plans to enhance the role and capacity of savings banks, which include measures to expand the supply of microloans and financing opportunities in the regions outside the Seoul metropolitan area, boost the operational capacity of small and medium-scale savings banks, and facilitate prompt restructuring in the industry by temporarily easing the current M&A requirements and bolstering the current liquidation and restructuring mechanisms available for real estate project finance loans. In the second half of this year, the FSC plans to announce additional set of measures intended to upgrade regulations on savings banks.