The Financial Supervisory Service labor union on the 17th urged the government to halt its plan to transfer the Financial Supervisory Service to a provincial location, saying it would be "the worst move, pushing even the supervisory body that must oversee finance on the front lines to the rear."
The FSS union said that "recent media reports said the government has included the FSS among the targets for the second round of public institution transfers to provincial areas to be announced at the end of this month," and issued a statement with that content. The union noted, "It is completely ignoring the voices of consumers and the financial front lines, fixated only on the uniform goal of transferring most public institutions."
Citing that the vast majority of financial complaints (81.4%), financial company headquarters (91.6%), on-site examination targets (88.3%), and listed company headquarters (72.7%) are concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area, it said, "A physical disconnection from the financial supervision field will lead to serious harm to financial consumers." It added, "For hundreds of permits issued each year, various filings accepted, and on-site examinations of financial companies, FSS employees would have to make return business trips to Seoul for face-to-face meetings, creating inefficiency."
The union expected that an increase in supervision costs would lead to higher supervisory levies on financial institutions, which would be passed on to consumers using financial institutions through higher lending rates and fees.
The union said, "If a mass exodus of core experts caused by the transfer to a provincial location is added on, supervisory capacity will rapidly decline and consumer harm will spread uncontrollably," and added, "We strongly oppose the FSS transfer to a provincial location and urge the immediate halt of such plans."