Lee Bok-hyun Reiterates Bank Coexistence... "No Showy One-Time Support"

KB Kookmin Bank Listens to Financial Consumers' Voices
KB Also Proposes Win-Win Plan... Interest Rate Cuts on All Household Loan Products

Lee Bok-hyun, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, once again emphasized the importance of win-win efforts by the banking sector, which has recorded record-high profits. He urged continuous efforts to reduce the public's interest burden, rather than one-time showmanship, as the high interest rate and high inflation situation persists.

On the 9th, Governor Lee visited the new building of KB Kookmin Bank's headquarters in Yeouido, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, where he met with small business owners and household loan borrowers to hold an 'On-site Meeting with Financial Consumers for Expanding Win-Win Finance.' At the event, he reiterated the banks' win-win efforts.

Governor Lee stated, "In the ongoing situation of high interest rates and high inflation, where the public's interest burden is increasing, there is a harsh view that the banking sector has achieved record profits but lacks win-win efforts. Banks, as members of the national economy, need to show efforts to share the pain and work towards win-win cooperation. Since banks cannot exist without consumers, continuous win-win efforts are necessary for banks to grow in the long term," he pointed out.

On the day, he listened to the support measures announced by KB Kookmin Bank together with consumers and gathered related opinions. Governor Lee said, "The announcement of KB Kookmin Bank's support plan is timely and needs to be spread throughout the banking sector. I hope these efforts do not become one-time or superficial but establish themselves as sincere and sustainable measures."

Meanwhile, KB Kookmin Bank announced a large-scale win-win support plan that day. It plans to reduce interest rates on all household loan products, including unsecured loans, providing annual interest reduction benefits exceeding 100 billion KRW, with about 34 billion KRW for new loan customers and about 72 billion KRW for existing loan customers. To induce a soft landing of household debt by bringing low-credit vulnerable borrowers into the banking sector, the bank will launch the ‘KB Kookmin Hope Loan,’ a 500 billion KRW second-tier financial sector loan conversion product, within this month. Additionally, it announced reductions in principal and overdue interest rates for corporate customers and emergency operational cost support for small business owners and self-employed individuals.

Lee Jae-geun, President of KB Kookmin Bank, said, "We will carefully listen to the vivid voices from the field conveyed by customers together with the Financial Supervisory Service and seriously reflect them in bank management. We will continuously promote various support projects, not as one-time efforts, to reduce the actual burden on consumers."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

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