Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. hosted the 11th Asia-Pacific Regional Committee Annual Conference and International Conference of the Intern-ational Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) on May 14-15 at Lotte Hotel in Seoul, with the main theme of the event being key elements of deposit insurance and challenges in practice.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Committee has 17 nations in the region as members and is made of six districts. KDIC hosted the first regional conference in 2003.

Among some 70 foreign participants were Jerzy Pruski, president of Poland Deposit Insurance Corp. and concurrent chairman of IADI; President Jean Pierre Sabourin of the Malaysia Deposit Insurance Corp. and the first chairman of the IADI; Chairman Hiroyuki Obata of the Asia-Pacific Regional Committee of the IADI and Vice President of the Japan Deposit Insurance Corp.; and Fred Carns, director of international affairs of the FDIC of the United States.

President Kim of the KDIC, in his welcoming speech at the meeting, said there were many changes in the Asia-Pacific region since the KDIC first hosted the initial meeting of the regional IADI in Seoul a decade ago.

In the case of Korea, the KDIC has been focusing on easing the difficulties for depositors by reducing the instability of the financial market. In the process, the company found a number of areas of its operation that need to be supplemented just as other deposit organizations that are faced with similar challenges.

The KDIC CEO said he hoped the conference this time would be an opportunity to shed lights on the importance of the deposit insurance system for the stability of the financial market, pleading for the Asia-Pacific regional committee to extend a helping hand to strengthen the deposit insurance organizations that were launched later.

Chairman Shin Je-yoon of the Financial Services Commission, in his keynote speech, said, “We need to strengthen the efforts to build a crisis control system that can cope with chronic crises in the financial market, with the deposit insurance organizations playing a key role. We have to have an effective clearance system to be able to minimize the impact on the financial market and each member country should stick steadfastly by the international standards, especially, the FSB (financial stability board) regulations.”

The FSC chairman also stressed that the IADI members of the Asia-Pacific region should more positively participate in the global financial affairs of each member nation in the region, and try harder to set up a strong depository protection system inside the region.

There were five sessions at the international conference and the 11th annual conference of the Asia-Pacific region.

During the meeting on May 14, the first day of the international event, the participants took up major issues in the management of a deposit insurance system and means to cope with them at the first session. An effective deposit insurance system that needs to be created first and related major issues were discussed at the second session. The third session dealt with the management of the non-IADI member countries’ deposit insurance system management in the region. Each member nation at the meeting discussed its current problems in the area of deposit insurance system management and their issues of concern.

On May 15, the second and last day of the international conference, the IADI-FSB Enhanced Guidance Papers were introduced during the fourth session of the event. The 5th session was dedicated to discussion of the evaluation of the adherence to the deposit insurance core regulations and example cases to secure the international appropriateness of the deposit insurance system.

In the afternoon, the 11th Asia-Pacific Regional Committee Annual Conference dealt with major projects in the region and the cooperation between deposit insurance systems in each member nation and regions and ways to go about it.

Outstanding features of the event in Seoul include the invitation of such non-member nations as Mongolia, Laos, Nepal, and Myanmar, which are in the middle of setting up deposit insurance systems in their countries for the first time, with a special session to take up their issues and problems related to deposit insurance systems.