FSS: "Personal Business Loan 119 Supported 2.4 Trillion KRW Debt Restructuring Last Year"

Selected as Outstanding Banks in the Second Half of Last Year
'Woori Bank · Busan Bank'

Financial Supervisory Service, Yeouido, Seoul. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

On the 27th, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced that the amount of loans with reduced repayment burdens through the Individual Business Loan 119 program reached 2.4093 trillion KRW last year. This represents an increase of 654.9 billion KRW (37.3%) compared to the previous year. The number of supported cases was 27,278, up 9,848 cases (56.5%) from the previous year.

According to the FSS, since the introduction of the Individual Business Loan 119 system in February 2013, a total of 79,941 borrowers have received debt adjustment support amounting to 11.9401 trillion KRW, helping to alleviate the debt repayment burden of individual business owners.

The Individual Business Loan 119 program supports individual business owners who are struggling to repay their debts at maturity or are currently delinquent (within 3 months) by providing maturity extensions, interest reductions, and other measures to ease repayment burdens. It offers quick rehabilitation opportunities through debt adjustment for marginal individual business owners at risk of delinquency, while banks can reduce the occurrence of non-performing loans through proactive support, creating a win-win effect for both consumers and banks.

By type of support, maturity extensions accounted for the largest portion last year at 1.6245 trillion KRW (67.4%), followed by interest reductions at 1.2508 trillion KRW (51.9%), and refinancing at 128.8 billion KRW (5.3%). Additionally, support expanded mainly for low-credit small business owners, with borrowers rated 6 to 10 and small loans under 50 million KRW increasing by 52.2% and 53.5%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

Since the first half of 2017, the FSS has been evaluating banks' operational performance semiannually to promote the system and select outstanding banks. In the second half of last year, Woori Bank ranked first among large banks, with NH Nonghyup Bank and Kookmin Bank taking second and third place overall, respectively. In the small and medium-sized bank category, Busan Bank ranked first, followed by Daegu Bank and Gyeongnam Bank in second and third place.

The FSS explained, "We plan to continuously strive to activate the system by encouraging internet-only banks that have not yet implemented the program to adopt it and by strengthening guidance for borrowers at risk of delinquency."

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