Are Foreigners Free with Financial Activities in Korea?
Are Foreigners Free with Financial Activities in Korea?
  • Reporter Kim Sung-hwan
  • 승인 2011.06.08 01:45
  • 댓글 0
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Buy Korea, Hedge Your Future

While the following might not apply to exchange students, for overseas graduate students who have a long-term study plan in South Korea or for foreign faculty members who have signed long-term contracts, there are some thirty financial services available to cultivate their wealth or hedge their lives through insurance.

Of such foreign students, researchers or professors, many probably give up because they simply thought foreigners werelimited from certain financial activities or there were thousands of documents to prepare. Such worries are now baseless. As long as one has a certificate of residence, such as an alien registration certificate, most financial activities are available, atleast by law. Now, what are worrisome are the criteria of individual institutions, but this is beside the point since the same are applied to Korean citizens.

Don’t be afraid of hours of oral instruction!

After the passage of the Capital Market Consolidation Acts of 2008, passed in response to the recent financial crisis, professional investment advice at financial institutions became increasingly tedious. For example, in selling funds, fundadvisors are required to complete a long survey to check the investment propensity of whether an investor is a risk-taker or risk-avoider at five levels. Yet, Asset Manager Jae-pil Kim of Mirae Asset Finance Plaza said when he had a foreign customer who was an English teacher, the only problem he had was linguistic.

Above is a questionnaire given by Mirae Asset Securities to foreigners. It is said that other institutions are not much different. Checking ‘Yes’ to just one of them allows the sale of funds and other financial products. Try the survey if you areeligible.

About Loan

Min-soo Kim of KB Bank pointed that there are no actual legal restrictions in banks loaning money. But this does not meanthat foreigners can freely borrow money from banks. Each bank has its own criteria and procedures. Because of the uncertainty and complexity, banks are unlikely to loan to foreigners, even though they have mortgages.

However, credit cards are easily issued as long as one has a certificate from one’s workplace, a maintainable source of income and a property tax receipt.

Financial activities are opened to foreigners as well as long as their identity is clear. If you’ve been hesitant of to visit a financial institution just because of the uncertainty, step out and knock on the door right away.