The new chief of South Korea’s Financial Service Commission (FSC) scorned domestic lenders for complacency, or making easy and safe money through lending to consumers instead of companies that require more risk-taking.
“Risk-prioritizing should the key role of the financial sector. But domestic banks tend to dump the risk on the borrowers or hide behind state lenders,” said FSC Chairman Choi Jong-ku in his first press conference on Wednesday since his inauguration.
Since the financial crisis in late 1990s, banks have been focused more on safe targets like households and mortgage or property-backed lending instead of incubating and investing in promising enterprises, he said.
The policy-making authority will re-examine the capital regulations in the second half so that funds can more easily flow into “productive” areas, he said.
The FSC will make it easier for individuals to start businesses through loans with their technology and business ideas even if they lack collateral. It will develop a business model to assess value of a company in its intellectual properties and their marketable worth for reference to lenders.
It will encourage financial institutions to set interest rates and service fees “reasonably” and “transparently,” he said
The maximum lending rate of 27.9 percent levied by non-banking sector will come down to 24 percent from January.
By Chung Seok-woo
[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]