Chairman Lee Okwon Meets with Heads of Eight Major Financial Holding Companies
Calls for Productive Finance, Consumer-Centered Finance, and Trustworthy Finance
Lee Okwon, the newly appointed Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, is delivering his inauguration speech at the inauguration ceremony held at the Government Seoul Office on the 15th. Photo by Yonhap News
On the afternoon of the 15th, Lee Okwon, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, held a meeting with the chairmen of the eight major financial holding companies at the Bankers’ Club in Jung-gu, Seoul, and called for a major transformation of the financial sector in three areas: productive finance, consumer-centered finance, and trusted finance.
Regarding productive finance, Chairman Lee stated, "It is now time for the financial sector to supply funds to new, more productive areas such as advanced industries, venture and innovative companies, regional economies, and renewable energy, and to change the future of the Korean economy." He added, "We will soon organize a gathering of financial institutions, financial consumers, and experts to concretize the detailed tasks for productive finance."
In relation to the shift toward consumer-centered finance, he emphasized, "Inclusiveness is needed, such as taking the lead in autonomous and preemptive debt restructuring and the supply of financial products for low-income individuals." He urged, "Financial consumers, who are our customers, must be placed at the center of management, and we must make thorough efforts to meticulously oversee all aspects of business operations and internal controls."
Regarding trusted finance, he said, "I urge thorough risk management, especially in the areas of household debt management, the soft landing of real estate project financing, stabilization of delinquency rates in the secondary financial sector, and business restructuring of vulnerable key industries."
He also promised to make special efforts to ensure that neither financial companies nor financial consumers experience any inconvenience during the process of reforming the financial supervisory system.
Chairman Lee explained, "The current integrated supervisory system will be reformed into a new system in which policy and supervision are separated, and dedicated supervisory agencies will be responsible for prudential supervision and consumer protection." He further stressed, "This reform of the supervisory system should not be a return to the past, but rather a future-oriented change that allows policy to function more as policy, supervision to function more as supervision, and resolves the conflict between prudential regulation and consumer protection."
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