S. Korean banks’ loan delinquency ratio rebounds in July

SEOUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) — South Korean banks’ loan delinquency ratio rebounded in July on more new delinquent loans than bad loan settlements, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
Bank loans, overdue at least one month, accounted for 0.47 percent of the total at the end of July, up 0.05 percentage points from a month earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The bad loan ratio turned upward after retreating 0.09 percentage points in the previous month.
New delinquent loans came to 2.7 trillion won (2.0 billion U.S. dollars) in the cited month, higher than the settlement of non-performing loans worth 1.5 trillion won (1.1 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 high interest rates.
The central bank had left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January 2023, after hiking it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.
Excluding the settled bad loan, the delinquency ratio for fresh bank loans came in at 0.12 percent in July, up 0.02 percentage points compared with the previous month.
The delinquency ratio for bank corporate loans increased 0.07 percentage points from a month earlier to 0.53 percent at the end of July, while the ratio for household loans added 0.02 percentage points to 0.38 percent. ■