Hana Bank puts measures in place to avoid Lime redux

Hana Bank Logo. [HANA BANK]

Hana Bank will resume the sale of private equity fund products following the adoption of new internal standards to assess such products, the bank announced Thursday.

The bank will only sell funds with verifiable assets, following a number of scandals that involved funds with structuring so complex that it was impossible to verify the assets.

Only employees who've received internal training on private equity fund products will be allowed to sell them to customers in order to prevent mis-selling. They will check the funds every three months to see if the investments are managed as proposed in the investment proposal. A report will be sent to clients every three months to notify them of how funds are being invested.

The first product Hana Bank plans to offer is a fund that invests in senior debt of Hana Bank's Global Human Resource Development Institute in Cheongna, Incheon. The product was developed by Hana Alternative Asset Management, an asset management firm of Hana Financial Group, and received extra scrutiny from the bank.

Hana Bank says this is the first time the group has developed a product of this sort, and that it is working to regain the trust of customers.

Hana Bank has been criticized for selling more than 140-billion-won ($126 million) worth of funds made by the troubled Lime Asset Management, which was accused of engaging in a 1.6-trillion-won Ponzi scheme. The bank is waiting for a sanctions review from the financial regulators for its part in the Lime scandal.

BY KANG JAE-EUN [kang.jaeeun@joongang.co.kr]