President Kim Joo-hyun is flanked by President Mark Neale, right, 

and his assistant at the signing of an MOU between Korea Deposit 

Insurance Corp. and Financial Services Compensation Scheme of 

Britain, on March 31

Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC) signed an MOU with the British Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) on the exchange of information and manpower training on March 31, the company said recently.

The two signatories have had friendly relations since October 2006 after signing an MOU for informal understanding and have decided to escalate their ties by signing an MOU facilitating regular meetings, the sharing of information, joint research, and personnel exchange among its diverse exchanges and cooperation.

President Kim Joo-hyun said the British financial measures and reinforcing deposit insurance systems since the financial crisis shows a lot to the Korean deposit insurance industry.

FSCS President Mark Neale said the KDIC played a big role in taking care of the financial crises in the past and recent structural reform of savings banks successfully and it has been recognized as a model deposit insurance firm by the international society for the transfer of its experiences to emerging nations.

Neale said he was impressed when the KDIC won the Deposit Insurance Organization Award for 2012 beating the FDIC of the United States at the IADI annual conference held in London in October 2012, which was hosted by the FSCS.

The two heads of the deposit insurance organizations have agreed to undertake joint research and the exchange of personnel in a comprehensive agreement to be worked out and signed by the two deposit insurance firms.

The two CEOs also have agreed to first undertake a joint study of the two firms on both strong and weak points, especially regarding the operation of the integrated deposit insurance systems so they can share them after an official agreement is signed.

Second, the exchange of personnel will go far to teach each other the experiences of the two firms, such as experience in restructuring sluggish financial organizations and the investigation of those responsible for the KDIC and the role of a deposit insurance firm for unhealthy large integrated financial organizations and the protection of the financial consumers from the unsound operation of the large financial organization, a strong point for the British deposit insurance firm, which can be jointly share through the exchange of personnel.

The MOU is the first one signed by the KDIC with a deposit insurance firm in an advanced nation and the KDIC means to make its network for global cooperation stronger and benchmark the experiences of deposit insurance operations in advanced nations.

The KDIC, in the meantime, held a session to explain its plans for bankrupt savings assets such as golf courses and land attached to the golf courses to possible investors on April 3.

Around 50 investors attended the session to listen to what the KDIC had to say about their plans to take care of the golf courses. A similar session for the project financing in Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces were held in February.

The plans included the geography of the surrounding areas of the golf courses to help possible investors, the status of buildings and facilities, and the progress of the construction on some of the golf courses.

The KDIC plans to hold similar sessions on other project financing projects as the needs arise and inform investors of the information they need to buy the defaulted assets of savings banks.