[2021 National Audit] Jeong Eun-bo "Efforts Underway to Increase Acceptance Rate of Interest Rate Reduction Requests and Eliminate Disparities"

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] Jung Eun-bo, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, stated that efforts are being made to improve the low acceptance rate of the right to request interest rate reductions and the discrepancies among banks.

On the 7th, Yoon Kwan-seok, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Political Affairs Committee, Incheon Namdong-eul), urged Governor Jung at the National Assembly audit to prepare measures to encourage banks to actively inform consumers about the right to request interest rate reductions to alleviate their interest burden.

Rep. Yoon said, "the number of customers who received interest rate reductions through the right to request interest rate cuts increased nearly twofold from 116,000 in 2016 to 225,000 last year, but the acceptance rate remains low," adding, "Looking at the acceptance rate by year, it was 96.9% in 2016, 59.3% in 2017, 40.4% in 2018, 37.7% in 2019, and 31.6% in 2020, decreasing every year. In the first half of this year, only 85,720 out of 341,783 cases were accepted, dropping the acceptance rate to 25.1%."

By bank, KakaoBank reduced loan interest rates for 299,399 customers, saving 7.2 billion KRW in loan interest; Industrial Bank of Korea 170,316 customers 518.7 billion KRW; Woori Bank 93,931 customers 850.6 billion KRW; Shinhan Bank 53,143 customers 19.9 billion KRW; Kookmin Bank 47,494 customers 81.9 billion KRW; NongHyup Bank 37,010 customers 38.2 billion KRW; K Bank 29,841 customers 2.4 billion KRW; Hana Bank 22,565 customers 36.1 billion KRW.

Rep. Yoon emphasized, “The right to request interest rate reductions is very important for many citizens struggling with increased household debt and interest burdens due to rising interest rates,” and urged, “Banks should actively guide customers about the right to request interest rate reductions so that more people can benefit from it.”

In response, Governor Jung acknowledged that "the acceptance rate of the right to request interest rate reductions is decreasing and discrepancies exist," and replied, "I will discuss with relevant parties ways to increase the acceptance rate and reduce discrepancies."

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