SBI and OK Savings Bank, Nos. 1 and 2 by asset size among savings banks, are moving to fully introduce a responsibility map. A responsibility map is a document that allocates and organizes the scope of responsibility that executives of relevant departments must bear when a financial incident occurs, and it must be submitted to the financial authorities by July this year.
With the Enforcement of the Act on Corporate Governance of Financial Companies in 2024, the financial sector has been introducing responsibility maps in stages. Banks and financial holding companies submitted responsibility maps to the financial authorities in Jan. last year, and large securities firms and insurers with total assets of 5 trillion won or more submitted in Jul. last year. Savings banks with assets of 700 billion won or more must submit responsibility maps to the financial authorities by Jul. this year, and those with less than 700 billion won by Jul. next year.
According to the financial industry on the 15th, SBI Savings Bank plans to complete a draft responsibility map within the first quarter of this year and conduct internal dry runs. OK Savings Bank recently prepared a draft responsibility map aligned with its organizational structure and is revising and supplementing it.
The responsibility map was prepared to strengthen internal controls by defining in advance the scope and content of financial company executives' responsibilities. Although standards exist now, cases occur where an executive is unaware of their responsibility or shifts blame to a subordinate to whom duties were delegated. In the wake of the large-scale loss incident involving Hong Kong H-index equity-linked securities (ELS), the financial authorities raised the need for responsibility maps.
KB Savings Bank plans to submit a responsibility map to the Financial Supervisory Service next month, the first in the industry. The Korea Federation of Savings Banks will finalize a standard responsibility map by next month and distribute it to each company. Because regional and small savings banks are not in a position to prepare their own responsibility maps, the federation is creating a standard version.
An industry official said, "The savings bank sector is at the stage of preparing for internal application by referring to responsibility maps from other sectors such as banks."