Financial Institutions Introduce 5-day Work Week in July

Beginning of July Korean banking institutions will only be open 5 days a week instead of 6days. To reduce the possible inconvenience for clients, Banking corporations were advised from ministry of finance to remain banks previous working hours for the period.

Foreign exchange, loan, closing accounts services will no longer be available when financial institutions close on Saturdays.

Korean Banking Association appointed team of 33 professional financers to reduce designated banking difficulties.

Ministry of Finance plan to allow tax payers to pay National tax that are due on Saturdays on following Monday with out having to pay any penalty charge of 10%..

Bong Hee Kang Senior Official, Korean Banking Association states that I am investigating carefully to classify tax types such as provincial tax, medical tax, electricity and vehicle tax, which may effectively be included in new policy, as soon as I finish this investigation I will request my research to Ministry of Finance.

Thus from beginning of July, ATMs will be free of charge when used before noon thus customers will have to use ATM when banking is necessary on Saturdays.

There are 24,709 ATMs throughout Korean province however 70% of ATMs are located within banks (which usually operates between 8am thru 10pm). Thus to reduce further inconvenience banks are under consideration to extend the operating hours.

For Savings account that expires on Saturday, when it is withdrawn on Friday interest rates will be excluded but when withdrawn on Monday, two-day worth of interest rate will be applied to the account. For the loan accounts, when account is redeemed on Monday consumers will not be charged.

For corporate loans that are due to be redeemed on Saturday is to be paid-off on Monday. Due to the fact that it takes two working days to be cleared. Alternatively consumers are advised to make previous arrangement with bank personnel to redeem the outstanding cost at discounted interest rate.

Kil Young Lee, Senior officer of Ministry of finance states that Companies that has corporate loans which is due on Saturday will be under great pressure to redeem on time but as we precedes to allow personal and corporations to cash-in the out standing cost on Monday will be very convenient. Although investment Banks and other financial institutions have not agreed to "Mon-Fri working hour policy" but since stock market is already closing on Saturdays and most of insurance contract is long term therefore when they do participate they will not be expecting such difficulties.

Sang-Chul Kim Dong-Won Kim sckim007@donga.com daviskim@donga.com