Strengthen Youth Protection from Multiple Angles... Support for Independence Also Needed
Kim Juhyun "Operating 5 One-Stop Youth Financial Counseling Centers This Year"
Continued Promotion of ISA and Youth Leap Account Support Enhancements
On the afternoon of the 2nd, Kim Juhyun, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, held a 'Biwochaewo Talk' at a restaurant near Gwanghwamun, Seoul, with the Financial Services Commission 2030 Advisory Group. They spent time communicating about the difficulties faced by young people related to finance and policy measures to improve these issues. (Source: Financial Services Commission)
On the 2nd, Kim Ju-hyun, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, held a 'Empty and Fill Talk' with the 2030 Advisory Group of the Financial Services Commission in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, and took time to communicate about the difficulties faced by the youth and policy measures to improve them.
On this day, the 2030 Advisory Group emphasized the need to strengthen protection for young people in various ways to support smooth independence, as young people with little financial experience are more likely to use high-interest loans or experience delinquency.
First, they stressed the necessity of sufficient financial education in advance so that young people can make reasonable decisions when using loans. Referring to various simulated stock investment programs and financial education program cases from overseas private companies, interactive and experiential financial education (Learning by doing) methods such as financial usage simulation apps that allow young people to vividly experience how their credit and financial situation change when using loans were discussed.
There was also an opinion that young adults who are new to society may have low credit scores due to lack of financial history or difficulty in proving income, making it difficult to use bank loans and thus exposing them to high-interest loans. Accordingly, measures to improve convenience in financial use by identifying the financial usage status of young adults and strengthening income verification and policy financial product guidance were discussed.
In addition, since there are a considerable number of lifestyle delinquencies such as telecommunication fee arrears due to difficult living conditions besides loan delinquency, proposals were made to actively support debt adjustment for vulnerable young people. To prevent careless delinquencies occurring without fully understanding the impact of delinquency, ways to provide simpler and easier guidance on the impact of delinquency on daily life were discussed. Furthermore, cases of young people suffering from illegal private loans and illegal debt collection damages were presented. As the possibility of encountering illegal private loans through online channels is increasing recently, the need to strengthen crackdowns on illegal private loans in online channels to protect digitally savvy young people was discussed.
The 2030 Advisory Group also presented opinions on the need to advance the capital market for the growth of both the Korean capital market and young people. They emphasized that although young people have a high interest in investment recently, many choose overseas stocks because of the perception that domestic listed companies make insufficient efforts for shareholders, and evaluated that the recently announced 'Corporate Value-Up Support Plan' is expected to change this perception and establish a culture where companies themselves strive to enhance corporate value and expand shareholder returns.
Furthermore, the 2030 Advisory Group expressed expectations that strengthening support for Individual Savings Accounts (ISA), such as expanding contribution limits and tax-exempt limits, will serve as an opportunity to activate support for youth asset formation through the capital market. They also discussed the need to strengthen the linkage between the Youth Leap Account and other youth policies to support asset formation throughout the life cycle and to enhance continuity among various asset formation products.
Chairman Kim said, "In order to intensively strengthen protection for young people with little financial experience, we will enhance 2030 financial education so that young people do not use excessive loans and continue to support policy-based low-income financial services to prevent exposure to excessive high interest rates," adding, "We plan to operate five one-stop youth financial counseling centers this year."
He continued, "We support rapid debt adjustment and integrated financial and telecommunication debt adjustment so that young people can recover quickly when experiencing delinquency, and we continue cooperation among related ministries and agencies to prevent and remedy damages caused by illegal private loans," adding, "We will faithfully implement the Corporate Value-Up Support Plan to ensure that companies’ autonomous efforts to enhance corporate value and expand shareholder returns are established, and continue to strengthen support for ISA and Youth Leap Accounts so that youth asset formation through the capital market and banking sector can be stably achieved."
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