[Profile] Go Seung-beom, New Chairman of the Financial Services Commission

Financial Services Commission Official Turned Monetary Policy Committee Member... Returns to Former Post After 5 Years

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-ho Kim] On the 5th, Ko Seung-beom, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Korea (59), who has been nominated as the new chairman of the Financial Services Commission, is a financial expert who has held key positions within the Financial Services Commission. Returning to his original organization after five years, Ko is highly regarded for his deep understanding of the biggest issues in the financial sector, including household debt, corporate restructuring, and the overall capital market.

Born in 1962, he graduated from Gyeongbok High School in Seoul and the Department of Economics at Seoul National University. He passed the 28th Administrative Examination. He has held various key positions such as Director of Bank Supervision and Director of Supervisory Policy at the Financial Supervisory Commission, Director of Planning and Administration, Director of Financial Services Bureau, Director of Financial Policy Bureau, Secretary-General, and Standing Commissioner at the Financial Services Commission.

In particular, he demonstrated crisis management skills by leading the handling of the 2003 credit card crisis and the 2011 savings bank project financing (PF) insolvency crisis.

Since 2016, he has served as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee and began his second term in April last year. He is also the first person to successfully secure reappointment since the revision of the Bank of Korea Act in 1998. At the Monetary Policy Committee meeting held on the 15th of last month, he was the only one among the seven members to express a minority opinion that the interest rate should be raised by 0.25 percentage points. At that time, he emphasized "financial stability" and was the only member to argue that the base rate should be raised from 0.5% to 0.75%. When Ko first joined the Monetary Policy Committee, he was classified as a "dove" (favoring monetary easing), but in October 2018, together with member Lee Il-hyung, he first presented a minority opinion for a rate hike, showing a "hawkish" (favoring monetary tightening) stance.

Ko is scheduled to be appointed after going through the National Assembly's personnel hearing committee.

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