Lee Bok-hyun "Ensuring Smooth PF Landing Measures... Monitoring PF-ABCP and Others"

Financial Supervisory Service Holds Financial Situation Review Meeting Led by Governor

Lee Bok-hyun, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, is delivering opening remarks at the "Securities Industry CEO Meeting" held on the 24th at the Korea Financial Investment Association in Yeouido, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

Lee Bok-hyun, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), said on the 1st, "Please conduct thorough monitoring focusing on project financing-asset-backed commercial paper (PF-ABCP) and credit finance bonds, which have credit caution concerns."

Governor Lee held a financial situation review meeting on the morning of the 1st and stated, "Along with the smooth implementation of measures to reduce the delinquency rate of PF loans, please thoroughly manage risks related to domestic and international instability factors."

The meeting was convened to review financial market risk factors following the Federal Reserve's (Fed) decision to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged and to discuss financial transaction-related livelihood measures ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.

The FSS assessed that despite the larger scale of corporate bond maturities at the beginning of the year (69.9 trillion won) compared to last year (58.6 trillion won), the net issuance trend is being maintained, credit spreads are narrowing, and overall conditions appear smooth.

However, since the capital market could become unstable due to potential domestic and international risk factors, the FSS decided to continue close monitoring focusing on PF-ABCP and credit finance bonds with credit caution concerns.

Additionally, although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised upward South Korea's economic growth forecast for this year to 2.3% compared to October last year, it plans to continuously analyze and monitor the impact of delayed economic recovery in China and logistics disruptions caused by the Red Sea crisis on our economy, the PF market, and other financial markets.

Meanwhile, as part of the livelihood stabilization measures announced on the 16th, Governor Lee also emphasized responses to financial crimes infringing on livelihoods and the social responsibility of financial companies. He said, "Financial crimes exploiting recently announced government policies are expected to surge ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday," and urged, "Promotion of damage prevention and response measures must be strengthened."

He continued, "Through joint inspections and investigations with related agencies targeting illegal private lenders and insurance fraud suspects, strict action should be taken if violations are found. Please ensure the activation of the debtor representative system for victims of illegal debt collection and the smooth progress of lawsuits invalidating antisocial loan contracts."

Regarding the 2.1 trillion won-scale win-win finance plan recently introduced by the banking sector, he requested, "Please comprehensively and systematically guide the application targets and procedures so that the public can easily understand and benefit from support plans for fulfilling social responsibility at the individual financial company level."

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