Korean banks¡¯ NPLs total 82 trillion won

As of the end of June, the non-performing loans of Korean financial institutions amounted to 82.5 trillion won, accounting for 13.6% of the nation¡¯s entire credit volume.

Still, the fixed bad loans, the collection of which is in question or considered as losses, were reduced by as much as 8 trillion won in June compared with March.

The Financial Supervisory Service announced the soundness of loans of 1,653 domestic financial institutions, including banks, merchant banks, insurance companies, securities firms and credit unions. It attributed the high percentage of non-performing loans to new classification of NPLs, which now includes those loans for which institutions issue asset-backed securities or that are considered as losses, requiring addition to bad debt reserves.

The FSS said that net fixed bad loans, which deducted fixed loans that are already considered as losses, declined 10.2% or 5 trillion won at the end of June.

And non-performing loans on which interest payments haven¡¯t been made for more than three months or those provided to workout companies are estimated to total 60.9 trillion won, showing a reduction of 3.2 trillion from the end of March.

Kim Seung-Ryun srkim@donga.com