[Finance Awards] Mirae Asset Global Investments hits W480tr milestone on global surge

Mirae Asset Global Investments crossed 480 trillion won ($326 billion) in assets under management this year as the Korean asset manager accelerates global expansion and artificial intelligence-powered innovation. The achievement reflects balanced growth across all core businesses — exchange-traded funds, pensions, outsourced investment management services and real estate — and underscores the company’s ambition to shape the future financial market through data and AI. Mirae Asset became the firs

Nov. 27, 2025

[Finance Awards] NH Nonghyup Bank ramps up rural, family-friendly initiatives

NH Nonghyup Bank is stepping up its social contribution efforts with a dual strategy targeting two of Korea’s most urgent challenges: revitalizing declining rural communities and easing the nation’s low birth rate crisis. The initiatives reflect the bank’s broader ESG vision — strengthening regional infrastructure while fostering a family-friendly culture to support long-term demographic sustainability. NH Nonghyup Bank recently expanded its flagship rural development program, the “Green Ladder

Nov. 27, 2025

[Finance Awards] Woori Bank brings inclusive finance to digital wallets

Woori Bank in October partnered with Samsung Electronics to launch Samsung Wallet Money & Points, a new digital payments service designed to better serve underage users and foreign residents in Korea, who often face hurdles accessing traditional cashless payment systems. The bank serves as the exclusive operator of the new service. Samsung Galaxy smartphone users can link a bank account or top up their balance to make payments without a physical card, while earning reward points on each transact

Nov. 27, 2025

[Finance Awards] Shinhan Financial widens lead over global rivals in Vietnam

Shinhan Financial Group has reinforced its standing as Vietnam’s top foreign financial institution, posting rapid gains in assets and profitability even as competition intensifies among global banking heavyweights. Shinhan’s local subsidiary, Shinhan Vietnam Bank, continues to expand its presence across both northern and southern regions, outperforming major rivals such as HSBC, ANZ and Standard Chartered in retail banking, corporate lending and foreign exchange services. Its financial ascent ha

Nov. 27, 2025

[Finance Awards] Hanwha Life turns to global markets, AI for future growth

Hanwha Life is accelerating its overseas expansion and digital transformation as it seeks new growth engines beyond Korea’s saturated insurance market. While many Korean insurers have targeted Southeast Asia in recent years, Hanwha Life has stood out for the scale and ambition of its global push, expanding simultaneously across banking, insurance and digital finance. In Indonesia, the company became the first Korean insurer to acquire a foreign bank when it purchased Nobu Bank earlier this year.

Nov. 27, 2025

[Finance Awards] Hana Financial doubles down on value-up push with bigger shareholder returns

Hana Financial Group has unveiled an aggressive plan to boost its corporate value, vowing stronger shareholder returns and a business overhaul aimed at breaking free from its chronic undervaluation. The group’s core target is to lift its price-to-book ratio above 1.0 — a symbolic threshold that indicates a company is valued fairly relative to its assets. A PBR below 1.0 suggests a stock trades at a discount, and Hana says it intends to correct that by demonstrating clearer, sustainable growth to

Nov. 27, 2025

Kia PV5 named Top Gear’s family car of the year

Kia's PV5 has been named family car of the year at the UK’s 2026 Top Gear Awards, becoming the first van to claim the honor, the automaker announced Thursday According to Kia, the award underscores the PV5’s early momentum in the global electric commercial vehicle market, even though the model has begun its global launch in the second half of this year. It also represents a breakthrough for the segment, as the family car award has traditionally gone to SUVs and passenger cars rather than vans. T

Nov. 27, 2025

Naver, Dunamu map W10tr plan to build global fintech powerhouse

South Korea’s top internet platform Naver and crypto heavyweight Dunamu have pledged to invest a combined 10 trillion won ($6.8 billion) over the next five years, laying out expansion plans and global ambitions ahead of their planned merger. The announcement came at a joint press briefing Thursday, a day after the boards of Naver Financial and Dunamu approved a share-swap deal that will place the crypto operator under Naver Financial’s full ownership. The event, held at Naver’s Pangyo headquarte

Nov. 27, 2025

Korea, tech giants form GPU task force to push massive Nvidia buy

South Korea kicked off a high-level working group with the country's top tech giants on Thursday as it begins coordinating plans to secure 260,000 advanced graphics processing units from Nvidia for domestic AI development. Ministry of Science and ICT vice minister Ryu Je-myung met with executives from Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, SK Telecom and Naver to launch the new working group, according to the ministry. The joint task force will coordinate large-scale procurement and deployment plan

Nov. 27, 2025

Celltrion launches first Xolair biosimilar in Brazil

Celltrion launched its allergy treatment Omlyclo (omalizumab) in Brazil on Thursday, marking the first time a Xolair biosimilar has entered Latin America’s largest pharmaceutical market. Omlyclo is the first biosimilar of Xolair, a global blockbuster treatment for allergies. Capitalizing on its status as a “first mover,” Celltrion aims to secure early Brazilian market dominance ahead of competitors. The launch begins with a 150-milligram dose, with an additional 75-milligram dose scheduled for r

Nov. 27, 2025

Hanwha Life rolls out AI tool for foreign planners

Hanwha Life said Thursday it has introduced a mobile translation assistant powered by generative artificial intelligence, designed to help foreign financial planners prepare more easily for Korea’s insurance qualification exams. The new service provides Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese learning videos, as well as practice questions and full mock exams in multiple languages. Built entirely for mobile use, the new service allows users to begin studying anytime, anywhere. Hanwha Life said the new ser

Nov. 27, 2025

SK Telecom, SK AX team up with AWS to accelerate AI, cloud innovation

SK Telecom and SK AX said Thursday that they have formed a strategic alliance with Amazon Web Services to jointly drive innovation in artificial intelligence infrastructure and cloud computing services. Under the three-party agreement, the companies will pool their respective strengths — SK Telecom’s expertise in telecommunications and artificial intelligence, SK AX’s experience in deploying artificial intelligence systems across industries and AWS' global cloud infrastructure — to accelerate di

Nov. 27, 2025

YouTube Premium Lite to debut in Korea under antitrust deal

Google will launch YouTube Premium Lite in South Korea — a more affordable subscription plan offering ad-free viewing, background play and offline downloads — at over 40 percent less than its standard Premium service. Korea will become the first country in the world for the company to introduce the Lite plan as a permanent offering. The move comes in the wake of the Fair Trade Commission’s final approval Thursday of a consent decree agreement with Google, wrapping up an antitrust investigation i

Nov. 27, 2025

Seoul shares open sharply higher on US gains

South Korean stocks opened sharply higher Thursday, jumping more than 1 percent, tracking overnight US gains on growing expectations of interest-rate cuts. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 41.95 points, or 1.06 percent, to 4,002.82 in the first 15 minutes of trading. The market returned to the 4,000 level for the first time since Nov. 20, after five trading days. On Wednesday (local time), Wall Street closed broadly higher, extending its winning streak to a fourth day as inv

Nov. 27, 2025

BOK holds key rate steady for 4th consecutive session amid FX volatility

South Korea's central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday to safeguard financial stability amid a weakened local currency and an unstable housing market. The Monetary Policy Board of Bank of Korea held the key rate steady at 2.5 percent at its rate-setting meeting in Seoul. It marked the fourth straight on-hold decision, even as the central bank remains in an easing cycle. Since October last year, the BOK has cut the key rate by a cumulative 100 basis points from 3.5 percent

Nov. 27, 2025