Public Fund Recoveries Remain Below 1 Trillion Won for Third Straight Year... Cumulative Recovery Rate at 72.5%

830 billion won recovered last year, down from previous year

Cumulative recovery reaches 122.2 trillion won

The amount of public funds recovered last year, which were raised to deal with insolvent financial institutions during the 1997 foreign exchange crisis under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, decreased from a year earlier and remained below 1 trillion won for the third consecutive year.

According to the "Status of Public Fund Management in the Fourth Quarter of 2025" released by the Financial Services Commission on the 24th, the government and related entities injected a total of 168.7 trillion won from November 1997 through the end of 2025, and recovered 122.2 trillion won, or 72.5% of that amount.

The amount recovered during 2025 alone was tallied at 830 billion won. As a result, the annual recovery amount has failed to reach 1 trillion won for three consecutive years, following 610 billion won in 2023 and 940 billion won in 2024.

The recovery amount in the fourth quarter of last year was 122.8 billion won. Of the government bonds totaling 757.4 billion won that were repaid by the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives in September 2022, 80 billion won that reached maturity was recovered, and 42.8 billion won in interest income was also secured from loans previously extended to KR&C (formerly the Resolution and Finance Corporation), a subsidiary of the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, during the financial institution restructuring process.

Public funds were raised using government-guaranteed bonds and other sources to clean up insolvent financial institutions during the economic crisis in 1997.

An official from the Financial Services Commission stated, "Going forward, the government, the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, and other relevant institutions will continue to make every effort to ensure the smooth repayment of public funds by efficiently managing held assets such as equity stakes in financial companies and actively pursuing their orderly sale."