Lee Chanjin, FSS Chief: "Sales of Foreign Currency Financial Products Rising... Refrain from Excessive Marketing"

On January 13, Lee Chanjin, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, pointed out the increasing sales of foreign currency financial products and called on financial companies to refrain from excessive marketing and promotional events.

Yonhap News Agency

According to the Financial Supervisory Service, Governor Lee convened a market situation review meeting that afternoon and stated, "With the increase in foreign currency deposits and insurance, the risk of financial consumer losses due to exchange rate fluctuations is also rising. Therefore, please guide financial companies to refrain from excessive marketing and events through executive meetings and other means."

At the meeting, he said, "Despite the recent upward trend in the KOSPI, there is a vague expectation of overseas asset value appreciation, leading to an increase in overseas stock investment and sales of foreign currency deposits and insurance. I urge you to strengthen proactive investor protection measures, such as raising awareness of the risks of losses due to exchange rate fluctuations, and to ensure the smooth implementation of measures to encourage investors to return capital to the domestic market."

He also requested, "Please actively support the industry so that the 'Return-to-Domestic Market Account' (RIA) and individual investor currency hedging products currently in preparation can be commercialized as quickly as possible." He added, "We will continue to improve the foreign investment environment to ensure the smooth inclusion of Korea in the World Government Bond Index (WGBI) scheduled for April, and will actively support Korea's inclusion in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Developed Markets Index."