"Efforts to Create a Favorable Environment for Foreign Financial Firms to Operate"

So-Young Kim, Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, "We will prepare measures to resolve difficulties"

Kim So-young, Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, stated on the 22nd, "We will continue various efforts to create a favorable environment for foreign financial companies to operate in Korea."

Vice Chairman Kim made these remarks during the "Foreign Financial Companies CEO Meeting" held at the Korea Federation of Banks in Jung-gu, Seoul, regarding the direction of promoting globalization in the financial industry.

Attending the meeting were Vice Chairman Kim, Jung Eun-young, CEO of HSBC, Oh Jong-wook, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Oh In-hwan, CEO of Soci?t? G?n?rale, Choi Kwang-nam, Deputy CEO of China Construction Bank, Son Young-chang, CEO of ING Securities, and Shin Jin-wook, CEO of Merrill Lynch Securities. They raised issues related to operating burdens caused by regulations such as real-name verification obligations, difficulties in capital management, and the need for regulatory improvements aligned with global practices.

Vice Chairman Kim said, "We will continue efforts to enhance the attractiveness of the Korean market to overseas investors on a broad scale," adding, "We will create an investor-friendly stock market environment through initiatives such as operating a 'Corporate Value-Up Program' that supports companies' own efforts to improve market evaluation."

He also stated, "Specifically, we will prepare measures to resolve difficulties that foreign financial companies can directly feel," and added, "We will hold sector-specific field meetings sequentially in the first half of the year to directly listen to the voices of foreign financial companies and actively review their suggestions and improvement tasks."

He emphasized, "We will ease operational and business burdens caused by regulations different from those overseas and remove 'splinters under the fingernails'?small but significant inconveniences in the field?to promote customized regulatory improvements that can be felt on-site."

Vice Chairman Kim stated, "If foreign financial companies enter the domestic market more actively, pioneering new markets and introducing new products, thereby promoting innovation and competition, it will greatly contribute to the development of Korea's financial industry," adding, "It can contribute to enhancing the international competitiveness of domestic financial companies and their overseas expansion, as well as help major Korean cities become international financial hubs."