Gov¡¯t approves revised bill on mutual savings firms

The government held a Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Lee Han-Dong Tuesday and approved a revised bill on mutual savings firms that calls for changing the name of mutual savings and finance companies (MSFCs) to savings banks and strengthening state supervision over their management.

If the bill is passed in the National Assembly during the current session, savings banks will be required to fill more than half the seats on their boards with outside directors from the first half of next year.

They will also be obligated to establish an auditing committee and make more than two-thirds of its members outside directors.

In addition, the bill calls for savings banks to report individual or corporate investors who acquire more than 10 percent of their outstanding shares to the Financial Supervisory Committee (FSC) in advance, and bans the execution of voting rights by unreported shareholders for a certain period.