A growing number of residents in Seoul are falling into irrecoverable debt, with new city data showing that people in their 60s and older now make up the majority of personal bankruptcy applicants, The Korea Herald reported. Six out of every 10 individuals who sought personal bankruptcy assistance through the Seoul Financial Welfare Counseling Center last year were aged 60 or above, according to a report released Tuesday. The center analyzed 1,192 valid bankruptcy applications filed in 2025 as part of its annual review of bankruptcy counseling cases.

Courts in South Korea will use a new set of guidelines in rehabilitation hearings to write off people’s crypto debts in an attempt to stop citizens from going bankrupt, DLNews.com reported. The new rules will see three courts, opened this month in the cities of Daejeon, Daegu, and Gwangju, exclude debts incurred from stock or cryptocurrency investments from liquidation calculations. And this, in turn, will reduce the overall amount debtors need to pay their creditors in personal rehabilitation proceedings, South Korean media outlet EToday reported.

South Korea's exports extended their ‌growth streak to a ninth ‌month in February as strong chip sales ​continued to underpin overall shipments even as uncertainties regarding U.S. tariffs cloud the outlook, Reuters reported. Exports from Asia's fourth-largest economy, ‌a bellwether ⁠for global trade, increased 29.0% in February from a ⁠year earlier to $67.45 billion, trade data showed. Imports gained 7.5%. The preliminary trade balance stood at $15.51 billion in February.

South Korean regulators are facing increased scrutiny after they failed to discover an issue with crypto exchange Bithumb’s internal systems, which led to $43 billion in Bitcoin accidentally being credited to user’s accounts earlier this month, Decrypt.com reported. Korea’s Financial Services Commission and Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) had both reviewed Bithumb at least three times since 2022, according to a local report from The Korea Times—yet the pair never found a structural input issue that ultimately led to the problem.

South Korea's Bithumb said on Wednesday that serious flaws had left the crypto exchange's internal system susceptible to potential sabotage and failed to prevent an erroneous transfer of more than $40 billion in assets last week, Reuters reported. The country's second-largest virtual asset exchange said it accidentally gave away about 620,000 bitcoins to customers during a promotional event, instead of 620,000 won ($426), triggering a 17% slump in bitcoin's price.

The South Korean SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) said on Feb. 8 that it will fully roll out the Small and Medium-Sized Corporations Crisis-Overcoming Alert Service to proactively prevent management crises at small and medium-sized corporations, Chosun.biz reported. The service was presented as a key task in a briefing by agencies under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on the 12th of last month.

The Il-san mixed-use cultural complex "One Mount" has effectively entered the path to bankruptcy. It comes 1 year and 6 months after the court opened rehabilitation proceedings. If bankruptcy is finalized, there is concern that lessors who purchased units and commercial tenants may not be able to recover their investment funds and deposits, Chosun.biz reported. According to legal sources, the Seoul Bankruptcy Court on Feb. 5 decided to discontinue rehabilitation proceedings for One Mount.

South Korea's financial market watchdog said on Monday local exchange Bithumb's unintentional giveaway of more than $40 billion in bitcoin to customers raises the need for tougher regulations to address the vulnerabilities of cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported. The cryptocurrency exchange said on Saturday it had accidentally given away the bitcoin to customers as promotional rewards, triggering a sharp selloff on the exchange.

A South Korean crypto exchange accidentally credited users with billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin this week, triggering a flash crash in the platform’s listed value of the token, Decrypt.com reported. Instead of airdropping users 2,000 won (a sum worth $1.37 at writing), the exchange, Bithumb, reportedly sent 2,000 BTC apiece, users said. That massive sum was worth some $142 million at writing, with Bitcoin recently trading around $71,000. Read more.

South Korea’s exports started the year on a strong note, with outbound shipments surging in January on more working days and robust semiconductor demand, the Wall Street Journal reported. Exports from Asia’s fourth-largest economy jumped 34% from a year earlier to $65.85 billion, following a 13% increase in December, according to preliminary data released by the trade ministry on Sunday. The January surge had been widely expected because of 3.5 additional working days due to the Lunar New Year holidays shifting to mid-February this year. That was much stronger than expectations.