Friday, August 2nd, 2013
According to banking sources on August 1, the Financial Services Commission has demanded commercial banks to submit reports on their sales offices incurring losses. Most banks have already reported that they would close 10 to 20 percent the offices by the year's end.
For example, Kookmin Bank said it has 228 loss-making offices out of the total 1,198 locations (as of the end of June 2013). Of these, the bank will shut down ten more in the second half after closing six in the first half. Woori Bank, which said that 111 locations were taking losses out of 991, will close a total of 23 locations this year including 15 already closed in the first half. Hana Bank said it would close 25 offices out of 650. In contrast, Shinhan Bank has no plan for office closure for the second half after slashing the branch office number to 937 from 951.
According to the Financial Services Commission, about 11 percent of all 7,800 commercial bank branch offices belong to underperforming ones.
