South Korea’s stock market stayed bullish, with its benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index crossing the 2,200 mark for the first time in six years Wednesday, amid world market rallies and the earnings parade of local corporations. The main bourse closed at 2,207.84 Wednesday, up 0.5 percent, or 10.99 points compared to the previous day. It surpassed the 2,200 mark for the first time after M...

Standard Chartered Bank Korea announced Wednesday it plans to hold a forum dedicated to financial technology at its main branch in Korea on May 17. Michael Gorriz, group chief information officer at the London-based Standard Chartered Bank and Lim Jung-wook, managing director of Startup Alliance in Korea, will deliver keynote speeches at the forum. Under the theme of “Digital Technology Reshapi...

South Korea’s benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index topped 2,200 points, for the first time in six years when it opened Wednesday. The main bourse soared 5.52 points, or 0.25 percent, to reach 2,202.37 at 9 a.m. After 36 minutes of trading, it reached 2,206.22, up 9.37 points, or 0.43 percent. The Kospi closed at 2,196.85 Tuesday. This is the first time in six years that Kospi has surp...

ING Life Insurance Korea announced Monday that it would set its share price at 33,000 won ($29.19), above its minimum suggested price at 31,500 won. This marks the first time an insurance company set a share price within the suggested range of the offering price -- between 31,500 won and 40,000 won -- in seven years, after the initial public offering of Samsung Life Insurance. Other insurance fi...

The earnings surprise of major commercial banks in South Korea in the first quarter was partly driven by their improved net interest margins, data showed Monday. The combined net profit of the four major commercial banks -- Shinhan Bank, Kookmin Bank, KEB Hana Bank and Woori Bank -- in the first quarter came to 2.28 trillion won ($2.01 billion), a 22.3 percent rise on-year, according to earnings...

The Financial Supervisory Service of Korea announced Friday that it took punitive action against Korea‘s four securities firms for receiving rebates from a securities-financing services company. The firms -- Mirae Asset Daewoo, NH Investment & Securities, Yuanta Securities Korea and Korea Investment & Securities -- were found to have received rebates in return for depositing customers’ money in ...

Kakao, the second-largest company by market cap on the second-tier Kosdaq, is mulling moving to the main bourse Kospi, according to the firm Thursday. “Listing on the Kospi is one option we are considering, but nothing has been fixed,” read a statement on the disclosure. This came in response to the market operator Korea Exchange’s request to clarify relevant rumors on the relisting that had bee...

KB Financial Group, the second-largest banking group in net assets, posted 870.1 billion won ($763.7 million) of net profit in the first quarter, a 59.7 percent rise on-year, according to the group’s earnings report Thursday. The net profit of the holding company, which operates financial units including Kookmin Bank, the second-largest commercial lender in market cap, skyrocketed 91.7 percent c...

The Financial Services Commission of Korea announced Thursday it would ease regulations for lenders in streamlining the debt restructuring of financially troubled firms. By revising the enforcement ordinance of the Financial Holding Companies Act, lenders will be more easily able to exclude debt-ridden firms under their receiverships from their subsidiaries in the process of converting debt into...

South Korean investment firm Samsung Asset Management announced Wednesday that it would build a $480 million worth private equity designed to fund infrastructure, by teaming up with the Australian investment company IFM Investors. The fund is slated to be earmarked by four Korean institutional investors, but a target for injection has yet to be chosen, according to the deal sealed in Seoul on We...

K bank, South Korea’s first internet-only bank and seventh commercial bank, had drawn more than 200,000 new customers and 230 billion won ($203 million) in deposits as of Tuesday morning, data from the bank showed. Nearly half of the deposits of K bank, which officially opened for business on April 3, had come from low-cost current and savings accounts, the bank said. K bank’s current and savin...

The Korea Public Procurement Expo 2017 kicks off Wednesday, seeking to reach out to a wide range of global buyers. It is held by the state-run Public Procurement Service. The number of international buyers participating in the annual event this year will reach 114 from 25 countries, a 8 percent increase from the previous year, which had 106 from 24 nations, according to PPS Administrator Chung Y...

Nearly half of almost 120,000 employees at 20 major financial firms in South Korea are women, but only 21 of them were in executive positions as of 2016, according to data cited in news reports Monday. The data also showed that among the 21, only two of them -- Jung Soo-kyung, an auditor at Woori Bank, and Park Soon-ae, a non-executive director at Kookmin Bank -- were board members. There were ...

The transaction volume of houses valued at 3 billion ($2.63 million) or more surged by seven times in just three years, data showed Sunday. Last year, 229 deals involving high-end real estate were posted on Onnara, a state-run web portal devoted to the real estate market, according to data compiled by the private market watcher Budongsan Info. The figure stood at 30 in 2013 and 123 in 2015. Out...