119.8 Billion Won Lost by Finance Corruption This Year

The finance corruptions by the employees of the finance industry such as misappropriation of customers` deposit, embezzlement by illegal loan, arbitrary transaction of stocks, misappropriation of insurance premium, illegal support of business acquaintances, has amounted 592.2 billion won for past two and half years.

According to the report of the Financial Supervisory Service, `The Classified Total of the Financial Corruption Incidents Over 100 Million Won`, which is presented to Rep. Cho Jae-Hwan (NMDP), the amount related to the financial corruption incidents this year totaled up to 119.8 billion won in 150 cases.

Consequently, 155 employees and executives of the related financial corruptions are mostly dismissed and some of them were punished with salary reduction or reprimand.

In 1999, 404 people related to 219 financial corruption cases, which amounted 128.6 billion won, were punished and 517 people were punished last year in relation to the 328 corruption incidents that misappropriated 343.8 billion won.

The amount related to the misappropriation of the Hanvit Bank ranks at the top with 134.4 billion won (since 1999 until June this year), followed by Seoul Bank (28.397 billion won), National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (23.286 billion won), and Kookmin Bank (23.254 billion won).

For the loss ratio to the related misappropriation amount, Industrial Bank of Korea recorded 95.5 percent (15.788 billion won loss out of the total related amount of 16.524 billion won). The average loss ratio of the 19 banks reached 38.2percent (104.659 billion won out of total corruption related amount of 273.666 billion won).

Rep. Cho pointed out that ``the mal-function of the surveillance system in the financial circle after the foreign exchange crisis may be one reason why the financial corruptions occur frequently. In addition, however, the increased misappropriations reflect the gambling mind of the employees of the financial circle who have worried about the restructuring.``

Yoon Young-Chan yyc11@donga.com