SeoulMarkets · tag
korea economy
3 stories tagged “korea economy”, each from official Korean data with its source and timestamp.
Korea's credit stress is in companies, not households
Bank loan delinquency, Dec 2023 to Jul 2026: corporate loans went 0.4% to 0.8%, a doubling. Household loans went 0.3% to 0.4%. The series everyone writes about is the one that moved least.
Korea's household debt quadrupled in 24 years. Who holds it barely changed.
Household credit went from ₩464.7t in 2002 to ₩2019.8t in 2026Q2 — 4.35 times. Commercial banks held 47.8% then and 50.6% now. The real swing was elsewhere.
Korean men now carry 14% more mortgage debt than women — in 2013 the gap was 1%
Bank of Korea borrower-level data: mortgage balance per borrower was ₩91.6m for men and ₩90.4m for women in 2013. By 2026Q2 it is ₩170.2m against ₩149.3m — a gap that widened in 47 of 53 quarters.