Disclosure of Interest Rate Reduction Requests Performance... Shinhan Leads in Discount Amount, NH Nonghyup Tops in Acceptance Rate

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunju Lee] An investigation into the status of interest rate reduction requests at the five major commercial banks during the first half of this year (January to June) revealed that Shinhan Bank recorded the highest number of accepted requests and the largest amount of interest reductions. NH Nonghyup Bank had the highest acceptance rate for interest rate reduction requests.

On the 30th, the Korea Federation of Banks publicly disclosed the performance of interest rate reduction request operations focusing on these details. This disclosure is a follow-up measure to the interest rate reduction request activation plan announced last October, standardizing the differing statistical criteria among banks to organize and disclose the performance. According to the Korea Federation of Banks, about 890,000 interest rate reduction requests were made in the first half of the year, of which approximately 221,000 were accepted, resulting in a total interest reduction of 72.8 billion KRW.

Among the five major commercial banks, Shinhan Bank provided the largest interest reduction amounting to 4.701 billion KRW through interest rate reduction requests. This figure includes both household and corporate loans. Following Shinhan Bank were Hana Bank (1.926 billion KRW) and Woori Bank (1.154 billion KRW), while KB Kookmin Bank reduced interest by 987 million KRW, and NH Nonghyup Bank by 765 million KRW.

Shinhan Bank also had the highest number of accepted interest rate reduction requests. It accepted 40,070 cases, followed by KB Kookmin Bank (12,760 cases), Woori Bank (8,674 cases), Nonghyup Bank (5,079 cases), and Hana Bank (4,014 cases).

However, when considering the overall acceptance rate, which is the ratio of accepted requests to total applications, NH Nonghyup Bank had the highest rate at 59.5%. Woori Bank followed with 46.5%, then KB Kookmin Bank (37.9%), Hana Bank (33.1%), and Shinhan Bank (30.4%).

For internet banks where applications are made non-face-to-face, the amount of interest reductions exceeded that of commercial banks. KakaoBank reduced interest by 2.565 billion KRW, and Toss Bank by 2.122 billion KRW. These figures surpass Hana Bank’s 1.926 billion KRW, which ranked second among commercial banks in terms of interest reduction amount.