FSS dedicates itself to fighting ‘five financial evils’

Home > Business > Finance

print dictionary print

FSS dedicates itself to fighting ‘five financial evils’

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is branding voice phishing, insurance fraud, illegal loan sharks, illegal bond collections and overly aggressive sales of products by financial institutions as “five financial evils” that it will endeavor to fight.

The financial watchdog announced a special task force led by Senior Deputy Governor Seo Tae-jong on Wednesday to combat those financial crimes, which are getting more clever and complex and therefore pose more of a risk than in the past.

Specific measures for each type of crime will be announced by April.

“Illegal actions involving financial transactions are still rampant and taking place in a more clever way,” Seo said at a press briefing. “The financial watchdog will make all-out efforts to protect consumers and keep the market orderly with special measures.”

According to the FSS, the volume of losses related to voice phishing surged from around 115 billion won in 2012 to 216 billion won last year.

Illegal loan issuances jumped from about 22,000 cases to 33,000 during the same period. Insurance frauds caught by the FSS rose from about 450 billion won in losses to 599 billion won. The watchdog estimates there will be around 4 trillion won worth of insurance-related frauds.

There were around 1,800 cases in which financial institutions forced consumers to subscribe to unwanted financial products in 2012, but such practices noticeably declined last year. The FSS found six related cases last year.


BY SONG SU-HYUN [song.suhyun@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)