Financial Supervisory Service Establishes 'On-Site Support Team' to Assist Small Business Owners and Self-Employed

Yoon Seok-heon, Financial Supervisory Service Chief, "Will Strive Not to Miss the Golden Time to Overcome the Crisis"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) will establish an 'On-site Support Team' to assist small business owners and self-employed individuals facing management difficulties due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

On the 2nd, the FSS announced that it has decided to build and operate a 'Small Business Owners and Self-Employed COVID-19 Crisis Management Support System' to help overcome crises for small business owners and self-employed individuals whose management difficulties may worsen due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

First, to support crisis management for small business owners and self-employed individuals in need of financial assistance, the FSS will establish an internal response organization called the 'On-site Support Team' and maintain a close cooperative system with consultative bodies of personnel in charge of small business and self-employed loans at each bank. Under this, a 'Practical Support Group' will be set up, with subordinate teams including a 'General Analysis Team' that checks financial difficulties through a special counseling center and a 'Field Situation Team' that identifies industry-specific trends through on-site listening operations.

Preemptive support for self-employed individuals at risk of bank loan delinquency will also be strengthened. Currently, 15 banks autonomously operate the 'Individual Business Loan 119,' a system that supports loan borrowers who have difficulty repaying debts at maturity or are delinquent by providing maturity extensions, interest reductions, and installment repayments. Separately, a support policy for 'loan principal repayment maturity extension and interest payment deferral' is being implemented for self-employed individuals struggling due to COVID-19.

The FSS plans to enhance employee training and system promotion so that banks can proactively inform small individual business owners about these programs before they apply for support. The FSS will regularly review the operational performance of these programs to ensure that the currently active system in some banks is expanded to all banks.

There was also discussion about reorganizing the existing startup-focused consulting support system into a crisis management consulting system. While the banking sector's 'Management Consulting Centers' mainly provide startup or financial consultations, considering the special circumstances of COVID-19, they plan to encourage these centers to shift functions toward consulting on sales recovery methods through online market entry or assisting in business recovery. They will also support the development of programs enabling non-face-to-face consultations and consulting in response to the spread of the untact (contactless) environment.

On the morning of the same day, Yoon Seok-heon, Governor of the FSS, held a meeting with heads of commercial banks at the Bankers Club of the Korea Federation of Banks and emphasized, "As the COVID-19 pandemic prolongs, management difficulties for small business owners and self-employed individuals may intensify," adding, "We plan to establish a crisis management support system to ensure we do not miss the golden time for overcoming the crisis."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.