South Korea says banks not manipulated
( 2001-07-10 17:06 ) (7 )

The head of South Korea's financial regulator on Tuesday hit back at international accusations that the government was forcing state-controlled banks to support debt-stricken firms.

A day after a top International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said the government should get out of the South Korean banking industry, Lee Keun-Young, chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission, insisted banks were not a political tool.

But he added that the government could not guarantee it would stick to an agreement with the IMF to privatize banks by early 2003.

IMF deputy managing directory Stanley Fischer said in Seoul on Monday that that public aid was holding up the restructuring of a massive amount of corporate debt.

The government faces criticism for giving aid to stricken companies, such as Hyundai Group, by having state-controlled banks buy their corporate bonds, and Fischer said companies whose viability is questioned by the market "should be allowed to fail."

But Lee insisted that more than one billion dollars of bonds put out by Hyundai group units had been bought under market conditions.

"All the decisions were taken by creditor banks according to their own credit strategy, you cannot say it was a government decision," he told a press luncheon.

Lee said accusations that banks were used by the government were "erroneous." He insisted that since the 1997 Asian financial crisis "bank ownership and management are completely different."

"Unlike the bad old days, now (bank) chief executive officers are in no position to give favours and loans. Company owners come to bank managements as they did in the past, but they don't realise it has changed."

Many experts have blamed collusion between South Korean 'chaebol' conglomerates and the authorities for the country's financial crisis. Money was lent with hardly any questions asked to finance reckless expansion by the conglomerates.

Fischer highlighted suspicions of underprovisioning for bad debts in the banking sector and said further corporate restructuring would probably reveal additional losses.

Lee denied a new banking crisis was looming. But as the authorities struggle in negotiations to sell a stake in Seoulbank to Deutsche Bank, Lee said the privatization of state-controlled banks may not be ready by 2003.

The government had previously told the IMF it would seek a foreign owner for Seoulbank, which was rescued from bankruptcy after the Asian crisis, and that banks would be privatized by early 2003.

But after several candidates withdrew, Deutsche Bank is only interested in taking a share of South Korea's ninth largest bank.

"The simple reality is that there is a lack of investors," said Lee. If "because of market conditions" it was only possible to find a foreign shareholder instead of an owner "there is enough room for the IMF to understand the situation," he added.

Lee said the government was pressing for the privatization of banks but it could not go ahead until "the market is normalised and management is stablised.

"We will look into privatization but more as a gradual process. We want to find a buyer that will pay the right price. We want to recover the huge public funds that have been put into the banks."

South Korea has spent more than US$100 billion since 1997 on shoring up the banking sector.