The Korea Housing Finance Corporation (HF) confirmed that more and more seniors are turning to reverse mortgages, an arrangement in which a homeowner borrows against the equity in his or her home and receives monthly payments from the lender, The Korea Times reported. It could be argued that reverse mortgages are a financial tool tailored made for Korea, which struggles to cope with a prolonged housing market slump, decaying employment situations, spiraling family debt and stagnant income. This has resulted in millions of over-50 Koreans marching blindly into retirement poverty.

While financial authorities continue to push forward their efforts to clean up Korea’s messy secondary banking sector, it remains to be seen whether they could properly finish what they started, The Korea Times reported. In its latest attempt to purge secondary lenders that were crippled by exposure to the country’s toxic property sector, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) suspended the Solomon Savings Bank, Mirae Savings Bank, Korea Savings Bank and Hanju Savings Bank Sunday. This extended the list of savings banks shelved by financial regulators to 20.

The prosecution said Thursday it will launch an investigation into savings banks subject to business suspension as early as next week. Now, up to four savings banks are expected to face administrative measures imposed by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), prompting concerns over another bank run, The Korea Times reported. “Basically, we will launch a probe at the request of the financial regulator after they announce the list of savings banks for business suspension,” a prosecutor said.

All countries are unequal, but Korea seems to be among those that are more unequal than others, The Korea Times reported. And as the scourge of inequality worsens by the day, the nation appears to be at a loss in attacking the problem: Policymakers here are reluctant to introduce dramatic changes to the country’s tax and benefit systems, claiming that the risk would be a bankrupt government, while schools and businesses continue to be woefully inept at educating and training a quality workforce.

Six out of 10 families in Seoul are indebted with the mountain of debt owed by households surpassing 200 trillion won (about $178 billion) last year, official figures showed Sunday, The Korea Times reported. According to the Seoul Development Institute (SDI), a think tank operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the capital’s households owed more than 204 trillion won to financial companies as of last November, which represented an annual 4.8 percent rise. About 60.9 percent of the households were in debt at the end of December, up 0.8 percent from the third quarter.

Households are spending more of their post-tax income on food than at any time since the mid-2000s as stagnant wages and high inflation squeezes living standards, official figures show. The poorest 20 percent of families spent 20.7 percent of their disposable income on food last year, the highest since the same level was reached in 2005, according to data from Statistics Korea Monday, The Korea Times reported. The average household spent 14.18 percent of its disposable income on food last year, the highest since 14.61 percent measured six years earlier.

South Korea has begun collecting a levy on domestic banks and local branches of foreign banks it introduced in August, hoping to help the economy guard against shocks stemming from rapid capital flows in and out of the country, the Finance Ministry said Sunday. The Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. paid $759,000, making it the first foreign or domestic bank to pay what is called the "macroprudential stability levy" to the Bank of Korea.

As Korea's economy entered a depression, the number of monthly personal bankruptcy cases soared to over 10,000 in just three months, The Chosunilbo reported. The Supreme Court said Monday that as many as 10,169 personal bankruptcies were filed last month, an increase from 8,786 in September. The month-on-month increase rate of personal bankruptcies was 117 cases, or 2 percent, in September and 1,383 cases, or 15.7 percent, in October, showing a steep climb since the Lehman Brothers farrago.

Listed small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) might face a series of bankruptcies as their holdings of cash reduced significantly last year, The Korea Times reported. According to the Korea Exchange and the Korea Listed Companies Association, the total cashable assets of 612 listed companies in Korea, which settled accounts on Dec. 31, stood at 52.22 trillion won ($46.71 billion), a 3.4 percent decrease from the previous year. Cashable assets include not just cash, but bank deposits and other financial products that could be turned into cash within three months.

A sharp rise in unsecured loans to households is feared to aggravate the financial status of savings banks that are beset by non-performing loans extended for construction project financing (PF), The Korea Times reported. According to preliminary data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), such loans extended by the secondary financial institutes last year exceeded 10 trillion won ($8.9 billion) for the first time. In September 2009, the amount stood at about 7 trillion won, signifying a 3 trillion won jump in less than two years.