KDIC President Kim Celebrates 100th Day in Office with Some Accomplishments

President Kim Tae-hyun of Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC). (Photo: KDIC)

Kim Tae-hyun, president of Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC), celebrated his 100th day in office on Jan. 8, 2022.

The former Financial Services Commission (FSC) official recorded many achievements early in his tenure, according to experts.

Analysts say Kim showed his excellent management ability in stabilizing the financial market in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the privatization of Woori Financial Group.

President Kim’s biggest achievement is the privatization of Woori Financial Group, analysts say.

In December 2021, KDIC sold off a 9.33 percent stake in Woori Financial Group, reducing its stake in Woori Financial Group from 15.13 percent to 5.80 percent.

Therefore, the Employee Stock Ownership Association (9.8 percent) became the largest shareholder of Woori Financial Group.

“As KDIC lost its status as the largest shareholder, Woori Financial Group virtually achieved its complete privatization,” KDIC said. KDIC recovered 12.3 trillion won of the 12.8 trillion won in public funds invested in Woori Financial Group for a recovery rate of 96.6 percent.

Another achievement of KDIC under Kim’s leadership is the establishment of the Wrong Remittance Return Support System, introduced in July 2021.

According to KDIC, as of the end of November, about 900 people received 1.2 billion won back through Wrong Remittance Return Support System. KDIC receives wrongly remitted money from the receiver and sends it back to the sender.

At the end of 2021, 5,281 applications for the return of mistaken remittances were received, an average of about 960 per month.

The proportion of the cases chosen to be supported steadily climbed from 17.2 percent in July to 47.6 percent at the end of 2021.

Less than three million won accounted for more than 84 percent while amounts between 100,000 won and 500,000 won made up 36.1 percent. It took 41 days from applications to returns on average.

President Kim is also working hard on raising the deposit protection limit.

“In order to establish an effective deposit insurance system, we plan to come up with improvement measures through a comprehensive review of the system such as protection limits, premium rates and target fund levels by the end of August 2023 with the Financial Services Commission,” Kim said in his New Year's address for 2022.

In a parliamentary audit in October last year, Kim said he will consider raising the deposit protection limit, which hadn’t changed from 50 million won since 2001, and has since shared opinions with related government organizations such as the Financial Services Commission (FSC).

The biggest task facing President Kim is to normalize Cambodia's CamKo City. CamKo City is a $2 billion urban development project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The name means Cambodia and Korea City. It is the first mega infrastructure project in Cambodia via foreign direct investment.

The large-scale development project is being promoted by Busan Savings Bank, after signing a joint project agreement with Korean subsidiary Landmark Worldwide (LMW) and local developer World City in August 2005.

Busan Savings Bank agreed to lend a total of 236.9 billion won to the project and receive 60 percent of its business profits by securing a 60 percent stake in World City in return.

However, the project was put on hold due to the insolvency of Busan Savings Bank between 2011 and 2012 and related bonds were transferred to KDIC.

Currently, KDIC's claim on CamKo City amount to 680 billion won, including the principal and interest. About 38,000 people have been suffering financial damage due to the insolvency of Busan Savings Bank.

The bigger problem is that biggest debtor Lee who is the president of World City has been hampering the exercise of KDIC’s rights through lawsuits.

Last year, KDIC won the final lawsuit for the return of shares in CamKo City but Lee has restricted the voting rights.

President Kim said he will put his utmost into resolving the problem. “We will recover funds related to CamKo City through close cooperation with Cambodian authorities and a step-by-step recovery roadmap,” Kim added.