Key officials of the Finance Services Commission(FSC), the Bank of Korea(BOK) and the Korea Deposit Insurance Corp.(KDIC), Rep. Min Byung-doo,chairman of the National Assembly Political Affairs Committeee, 5th L, and President Wi Sung-baek, 6th L, of the KDIC, are lined up for a photo session at the Joint Financial Superswion Workshop held on Aug. 23 at Konkuk University in Seoul. (Photo:KDIC)

The Financial Services Commission (FSC), the Bank of Korea (BOK) and the Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC), the three major financial supervisory institutions making up the financial safety network in the country, jointly held the 2019 Joint Supervision Workshop on Aug. 23 at the auditorium of KDIC in Seoul.

Rep. Min Byung-doo, chairman of the National Assembly Political Affairs, said in his speech that the three financial supervisory institutions would do their best to ensure the stability of the financial market amid rising uncertainty due to the U.S.-China trade stand-off, and Japan’s delisting of Korea from its list of most favored trading nations.

The annual joint workshop designed to strengthen mutual financial supervision was first launched in 2008 and has been held every year since. About 90 supervisory personnel from the three financial institutions conducted a heated debate on the role of the financial supervision, especially on ways to develop it further.

Thru the event, the three financial organizations making up the financial safety network in the country agreed to do their best to reduce the financial burdens of the financial institutions and boost the effectiveness of financial supervision.
Total amount of insured savings in the country came to 2,133,4 trillion won as of the end of March this year, up 1.4 percent from the end of last year.

The banks had 1,265.4 trillion won during the same period, up 1.7 percent from the preceding month, the situation attributed to the bank deposits accounts still regarded as the safest to keep money as advocated by the banks to attract the deposits to get ready for the changes in calculating methods for the deposit and loan rates, among others.

With the weight the housing loans expected to be increased to 115 percent in the calculation of the loan and deposit rates from next year, the banks would need to boost savings deposits by 15 percent from next year.

On the other hand, the foreign exchange deposits stood at 7.7 trillion won, but they might be reduced by 7.2 percent if the U.S. dollar depositors would want to take advantage of a rise in the value of the U.S. dollar-Korean won exchange rate by selling the U.S. dollars. The insured savings at the insurance companies came to 778.3 trillion won, up 0.9 percent from the end of last year, but the rising rates show a decline.

South Korea's state-run deposit insurer said recently it has opened a branch office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to help recover local property assets once owned by bankrupt Korean savings banks.

Cambodia has 78.5 percent of overseas assets, mostly bad debts, currently managed by the Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC), which has taken over from defunct savings banks.

Several South Korean savings banks made investments in project financing in the Cambodian real estate market between 2006 and 2010. The new office is tasked with supporting efforts to retrieve those assets in cooperation with local authorities.

“So far, there has been no performance as intended in asset recovery efforts due to a geographical distance and different business conditions,” Gwak Bum-gook, head of the KDIC, said at the opening ceremony of the office. The Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) is a deposit insurance corporation, established in 1996 in Korea to protect depositors and maintain the stability of the financial system.

The main functions of KDIC are insurance management, risk surveillance, resolution, recovery, and investigation.
The Depositor Protection Act was enacted on Dec. 29, 1995, and the KDIC established on June 1, 1996. The KDIC began its operations as a deposit insurer on Jan. 1, 1997, collecting The first deposit insurance premiums on April 30 that year.

The first Deposit Insurance Fund Bond was issued on January 3, 1998, and on April 01 deposit insurance funds were consolidated under the management of the KDIC. The Resolution Finance Corporation (RFC) was established on Dec. 27, 1999.