Korea Business News Agency - NSP NEWS AGENCY.

(Seoul=NSP News Agency) eunyoung Huh Journalist = Overseas corporations of Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) finally succeeded in turning into profit-making in the first half of this year. IBK earned a total net profit of KRW 18.069 billion from three overseas corporations of IBK China Ltd., Bank IBK Indonesia and IBK Bank Myanmar.

Bank IBK Indonesia recorded a net loss of KRW 13.124 billion won in the first half of last year but saw a turnaround this year, making KRW 3.233 billion of net profit.

IBK Bank Myanmar established last year made a net loss of KRW 1.699 billion in the first half of last year, but it dropped to KRW 745 million this year.

IBK China Ltd. hit the record high profit this year among all its first six month profit records. Its net profit of the first six months was KRW 7.265 billion in 2020, KRW 10.211 billion in 2021, and KRW 15.584 billion this year, steadily scaling up surplus year on year.

However, IBK’s entry to Vietnam which is essential to its business has been put on hold.

In Vietnam, foreign banks like IBK can establish 2 or more branches only when they have their foreign corporations in the local area. However, the current situation of an on-going restructuring in the banking industry in Vietnam is preventing the Vietnam authority to issue an approval for foreign banks.

Despite the achievement by the three foreign corporations, IBK still has a fewer number of overseas branches making not much profit than other major big banks. Accordingly, IBK is considering other regions in Europe - like Poland - and Latin America as well as Southeast Asia as another option to expand its presence to overseas market.

NSP News Agency eunyoung Huh Journalist eunyoung114@nspna.com
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