S. Korean banks’ loan delinquency ratio rises for 2nd month in August

SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) — South Korean banks’ loan delinquency ratio rose for the second consecutive month due to more new delinquent loans than bad loan settlements, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
Bank loan, overdue at least one month, stood at 0.53 percent of the total at the end of August, up 0.06 percentage points from a month earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The bad loan ratio kept an upward trend after going up 0.05 percentage points in the previous month.
New delinquent loan came to 3.0 trillion won (2.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the cited month, higher than the settlement of non-performing loans worth 1.4 trillion won (1 billion dollars).
The delinquency ratio has roughly been on the rise after hitting a bottom at 0.20 percent in June 2022 on the back of the still high interest rates.
The central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent in October, after freezing it for the past 21 months.
Excluding the settled bad loan, the delinquency ratio for fresh bank loan came in at 0.13 percent in August, up 0.01 percentage point compared with the previous month.
The delinquency ratio for bank corporate loans increased 0.09 percentage points from a month earlier to 0.62 percent at the end of August, while the ratio for household loans added 0.02 percentage points to 0.40 percent. ■