Banks have strengthened internal controls every year to prevent a recurrence of financial accidents, but such incidents still occur frequently. In particular, at the four major commercial banks — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, and Woori — large embezzlement cases and others occurred this year, pushing the amount of losses through August above the total for last year.
According to the "Status of financial accidents at commercial banks" submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to People Power Party lawmaker Lee Heon-seung's office on the National Policy Committee on the 16th, losses from financial accidents at the four major commercial banks from January to August this year totaled 169.1 billion won, surpassing last year's 46.3 billion won.
Shinhan Bank had the most cases at 22, but Woori Bank suffered the largest losses at 111.9 billion won. By number of cases, the ranking was Shinhan Bank (22 cases · 12.6 billion won), Hana Bank (19 cases · 57.2 billion won), Woori Bank (18 cases · 111.9 billion won), and KB Kookmin Bank (16 cases · 16.1 billion won). As a single case, the largest was a 107.6 billion won financial accident caused by an external fraudster at Woori Saudara Bank, Woori Bank's local subsidiary in Indonesia, in the first half of this year.
The number of financial accidents at the four major banks fell from 41 in 2020 to 30 in 2023, then surged to 64 last year, and reached 75 through 8th this year, indicating it will increase further. In terms of losses, the total rose from 5.4 billion won in 2020 to 65.8 billion won in 2022. Although the number of accidents in 2022 was 37, fewer than in 2020, the impact was large due to an employee embezzlement case at Woori Bank in the 70 billion won range.
Losses, which then fell to 3.3 billion won in 2023, swelled to 46.4 billion won last year alongside an increase in financial accidents. Financial accidents have continued recently at the four major banks, so both the number of cases and the losses are expected to rise further. Recently, an abnormal transaction at KB Kookmin Bank's local subsidiary in Indonesia caused a 3.1 billion won financial accident.
A commercial bank official said, "In response to repeated financial accidents, we are upgrading internal controls and expanding their scope by enhancing the fraud detection system (FDS) using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to detect abnormal transactions."