Most Corrupted Banks
The amount of embezzlement by bank officials has exceeded 100 billion won (US$92.9 million). In particular, Korea Exchange Bank and NH Bank are dishonored by being labeled “corrupt banks,” since they were ranked first in the amount of embezzlement and the number of embezzlement cases, respectively.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service on Oct. 30, the amount of misappropriations by 173 bank officials of 17 commercial banks reached 105.7 billion won (US$98.24 million) from 2010 to August 2014. Of the amount, 78.8 billion won (US$73.2 million) has yet to be collected.
Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) ranked highest in the list of amounts embezzled. The bank accounted for more than half of the total 50.9 billion won (US$47.2 million) that local commercial banks embezzled. In addition, only 237 million won (US$220,213) of that has been collected, leaving 50.6 billion won (US$47.0 million) up in the air. NH Bank followed KEB in the rankings with 15.9 billion won (US$14.8 million) still missing. Woori Bank and Kookmin Bank followed, with 11.6 billion won (US$10.8 million) and 11.3 billion won (US$10.5 million) unaccounted for, respectively.
By the number of embezzlement cases, NH Bank has the greatest number of embezzlers with 42, followed by Woori Bank with 29 and Shinhan Bank with 26. These three banks accounted for 56 percent of all embezzlement cases, recording 97 altogether.
The combined embezzlement amount of KEB, Woori Bank, and NH Bank accounts for 74.1 percent of the total. The cases of embezzlement of over 1 billion won (US$929,450) in major banks were 11 in total: four for Woori Bank; two each for NH Bank, Kookmin Bank, and Hana Bank; and one for KEB.