Korea Post deposits top 70 trillion won in April

Deposits at the Korea Post surpassed 70 trillion won ($65.4 billion) in April, helped by raised interest rates and the elimination of service fees, the post office operator said Thursday.

The tally as of April 25 showed 70.01 trillion won deposited with the Korea Post, up 10.1 percent, or 6.4 trillion won, from the end of last year. The increase during the four-month period this year exceeds the gains over the 2016-2017 span by more than 1 trillion won, according to the data.

The Korea Post had raised interest rates for monthly savings accounts and money market deposit accounts by 0.2 percentage point in December, in step with the central bank hiking the key rate.

In January, the postal service agency further raised interest rates for monthly savings accounts by 0.2 percentage point and added 0.3 percentage point to time deposits.

In March, it eliminated service charges for customers using ATMs after bank hours and for inter-bank and account transfers.

Officials said some 8.49 million customers had 2.33 billion won in service fees waved since the charges were removed.

The Korea Post, led by its new chief Kang Seong-ju, who took office in November, has been going digital in enlarging its financial services. It offered shared purchasing of high-yield timed deposits, in which interest rates vary depending on the number of subscribers, and strengthened mobile money transfer services.

It aims to increase its financial assets, which are currently at 124 trillion won, to 180 trillion won by 2022, with 110 trillion won in deposits and 70 trillion won in insurance products.

Yonhap