Gyeongnam·Kookmin Bank President "Truly Sorry"... Remarks Amid Consecutive Embezzlement Incidents

Bank Presidents Bow Their Heads as Employee Corruption Scandals Emerge

A real estate project financing loan embezzlement incident involving approximately 56 billion KRW occurred at BNK Gyeongnam Bank. The photo shows a BNK Gyeongnam Bank branch in downtown Seoul on the 3rd. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

Ye Kyung-tak, President of Gyeongnam Bank, bowed his head and said, "I am truly sorry" regarding the 56.2 billion won embezzlement incident by an employee that occurred earlier this month. He added, "We will do our best to restore customers' trust and prevent recurrence."

Before attending the 'Bank Presidents' Meeting for Strengthening Internal Controls' hosted by the Financial Supervisory Service at the Korea Federation of Banks in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 17th, President Ye told reporters, "We will do our best to restore customers' trust and prevent recurrence," and stated, "We are devising various recurrence prevention measures to strictly comply with the Financial Supervisory Service's internal control innovation plans for banks."

At Gyeongnam Bank, a 56.2 billion won embezzlement incident occurred involving real estate project financing (PF) loans. An employee who had been in charge of real estate PF loan operations for about 15 years from 2007 to April of this year is currently under prosecution investigation on suspicion of embezzlement.

Lee Jae-geun, President of KB Kookmin Bank, also expressed deep apologies for the incident where some employees gained unfair profits of 12.7 billion won by using undisclosed information of listed companies, saying, "We sincerely apologize for causing concern," and added, "The related investigation is currently underway, and we will actively cooperate to ensure the truth is clearly revealed."

Regarding the criticism that the employees' misconduct was organized, President Lee said, "It is uncertain, so we need to confirm how many people were involved."

Employees of the securities agency department at Kookmin Bank had, from January 2021 to April this year, obtained information in advance about the scale and schedule of free capital increases of 61 listed companies while handling the free capital increase tasks. They then sold the stocks of those companies under their own and family members' names to gain profits.

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