Former Finance Minister Kang Man-soo was sentenced to four years in prison Friday on multiple corruption charges. The Seoul Central District Court convicted Kang, also a former head of the state-run Korea Development Bank, of pressuring the government to designate a biotech firm run by his friend as a business partner and provide billions of won in subsidies in December 2009. The court ordered h...

South Korean stocks started marginally lower on Friday, as a drop in top-listed firms offset gains in cosmetics and food companies, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index shed 2.04 points, or 0.09 percent, to trade at 2,284.78 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Top-cap Samsung Electronics lost almost 1 percent, with No. 1 automaker Hyundai Motor sliding 1.6 percent. Bu...

South Korean stocks declined 0.27 percent on Thursday, as an elevating US political crisis involving its president prodded investors into a flight from making risky bets, analysts said. The local currency fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index KOSPI closed down 6.26 points at 2,286.82. Trading volume was moderate at 374.4 million shares worth 5.83 trillion wo...

Cultural change in the banking industry looms, with financial technology penetrating into the industry worldwide. But the new technology should be embellished with “human touch,” which would leverage deeper fintech penetration by improving customers’ satisfaction, bank officials said at a forum held at Standard Chartered Korea headquarters in Seoul on Wednesday. Michael Gorriz, chief informatio...

South Korean stocks traded 0.49 percent lower late Thursday morning, dragged down by a drop in top-cap tech and IT service companies, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 11.22 points to 2,281.86 as of 11:20 a.m. Market behemoth Samsung Electronics was down nearly 1 percent, with Naver, the operator of the country's top search engine, losing 0.8 percent. In contr...

South Korea's stock funds suffered outflows for an eighth straight trading session on profit-taking as the benchmark stock index stayed in a tight range, data showed Thursday. After touching its highest-ever close earlier last week, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index has lost some ground in recent trading sessions. According to the data by the Korea Financial Investment Association, domestic...

Shares of the two latest big debutants on South Korea's stock market -- Netmarble Games Corp. and ING Life Insurance Korea -- have tumbled well below their issue price as investors are leery of earnings and market outlooks, analysts said Thursday. South Korea's largest mobile games maker Netmarble Games Corp. successfully debuted on the country's main bourse on Friday above its initial public of...

South Korean stocks got off to a weak start Thursday, tracking their US peers that ended bearish amid intensifying political turmoil surrounding President Donald Trump's alleged interference with a federal investigation, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index dropped 11.18 points, or 0.49 percent, to trade at 2,281.90 in the first 15 minutes of trading. The US S&P 100 in...

South Korean stocks inched down Wednesday as there was no fresh lead to drive the market following a recent rally, analysts said. The local currency fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index lost 2.25 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 2,293.08. Trading volume was moderate at 390.4 million shares worth 5.62 trillion won ($5.02 billion), with decliners outstripp...

K-Bank, South Korea's first Internet-only bank, said Wednesday it has achieved 76 percent of its full-year target of attracting deposits just 45 days after launching operations. K-Bank, which was launched on April 3, has attracted 380 billion won ($339.2 million) in deposits, compared with this year's target of 500 billion won. K-Bank has also made loans worth 310 billion won, compared with thi...

Some 300 contract employees of Citibank Korea will unconditionally become full-time within 2017, the bank said Tuesday. The benefiting employees are office clerks and bank tellers, currently under unlimited term contracts. Previously, each year the Korean unit of the New York-based bank converted the contract employees into permanent positions through a set of screening processes, which account...

The daily foreign exchange turnover by local and foreign banks in South Korea rose 11.9 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter, the central bank said Wednesday. The daily FX turnover averaged $49.98 billion in the January to March period, compared to the previous quarter's $44.66 billion, according to the Bank of Korea. The daily trading volume of foreign exchange spots reached ...

South Korean stocks traded 0.14 percent lower late Wednesday morning, led by losses in brokerage and utility firms, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index slipped 3.25 points to 2,292.08 as of 11:20 a.m. NH Investment & Securities, a leading brokerage house here, dropped 1.8 percent, with state-run utility firm Korea Electric Power Corp. falling 1.7 percent. But large-c...

South Korea's credit card spending jumped nearly 14 percent in March from a year ago on higher oil prices and a rise in the number of outbound travelers, data showed Wednesday. Credit card purchases totaled 66.4 trillion won ($59.5 billion) in March, up 13.7 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to the data from the Credit Finance Association. The surge was attributed largely to...

Foreign investors remained net buyers of South Korean stocks for the fifth consecutive month in April, government data showed Wednesday. Offshore investors bought a net 1.26 trillion won ($1.12 billion) worth of South Korean stocks last month, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service. Boosted by foreign buying and healthier corporate earnings, South Korea's main stock index ha...